Daniel Kawczynski's disappointment at chancellor's tax U-turn

A Conservative MP has said he was "disappointed" by the chancellor's U-turn on the top rate of income tax.

Daniel Kawczynski, MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham, defended the policy which he said would attract wealth-creating entrepreneurs to the UK.

The government announced plans to scrap the 45p rate of income tax for higher earners on Monday, days after announcing the measure.

Several Tory MPs had criticised the plan.

Mr Kawczynski accepted the majority of MPs did not support the tax cut and that the "markets were temporarily spooked".

But the tax cut for the highest earners was needed if the UK was to compete with tax-regimes in countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Switzerland and Singapore, he said.

He said he recently spoke to a friend who could have benefited from the tax cut, if he had not moved his business overseas.

The friend did not want to return the UK, because, "the taxation level in the UK is so pernicious and the HMRC is so complex and aggressive to entrepreneurs," he said.

Aaron Bell, the Conservative MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme, said he was glad Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng had changed his mind because it was "overshadowing everything else that was welcome in the Growth Plan".

Jonathan Gullis, the Stoke North MP, agreed and said: "The prime minister and the chancellor have listened."

But Helen Morgan, the Liberal Democrat MP for North Shropshire, called on the chancellor to resign and said Mr Kwarteng had "not taken advice, not listened and got it horribly wrong".

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