A British manufacturer dubbed the Mail’s ‘most promising firm of the new millennium’ has blamed Labour for closing its factories.
Kevin Hancock, managing director of Connectix Cabling Systems, has said he will shut down his four factories in the UK because of the anti-growth Budget.
He blamed Rachel Reeves’ £25bn national insurance tax raid and increases to the national minimum wage for making it impossible to produce in Britain.
‘Manufacturing in Britain will die. It has already died, in my view,’ Hancock said.
Around 150 factory staff he employs in the UK will be offered new jobs within his business.
It is a huge blow for Hancock after his company won a national award in this newspaper in 1999 for the ‘most promising’ business on the eve of the millennium.
The Braintree-based firm posted £50m of sales last year and specialises in making fibre optic cables for internet providers.
But it will move its factory operations to either India or China after the weight of increased costs has become too much to bear.
He warned that his exit could be the first of many in the sector.
‘There’s a cliff coming for manufacturing,’ he told the Sunday Telegraph, who first reported the story.
He said: ‘The minimum wage has gone up again after a 10 per cent rise last year, so that’s 16 per cent in two years.
‘And it just goes on, you look at the NI rise which is massive for us all and I can’t see Labour not increasing that further.’
‘The saddest thing is we actually want to be made in Britain,’ Hancock, who founded his business in 1993 aged just 25.
He grew the company to become one of the largest UK manufacturing, production and distribution facilities for producing specialist cables.
He added: ‘What I’d say to Labour is they should stop trying to use business as a cash cow and start seeing business as a partnership rather than just taking from them.’