With only a few weeks left until the 7 May polling day, party leader Ed Miliband officially launched Labour's manifesto, titled 'Britain Can Be Better', on the old Granada TV Coronation Street set.
Among the party's core policies for business were promises to: maintain the most competitive rate of Corporation Tax in the G7; continue to support the construction of HS2; and to stengthen rules on late payment.
Labour also promised to put small businesses "first in line for tax cuts" by first cutting and then freezing business rates on 1.5m smaller business properties "instead of cutting Corporation Tax again for the largest firms".
Meanwhile, the party also promised to help SMEs access the finance they need to invest and grow by creating a "British Investment Bank with the mission to help businesses grow and to create wealth and jobs".
The manifesto went on to state that this new government-backed bank would "have the resources to improve access to finance for small and medium-sized businesses, and will support a network of regional banks".
However, this policy drew criticism for not being demonstrably different from the existing British Business Bank, while the manifesto made no mention of what would happen to the existing set-up.
Malcolm Small, the Institute of Directors' financial services adviser, said: "It is hard to see what value the proposed British Investment Bank would add, since we already have the British Business Bank and various other schemes to boost lending to small and medium-sized businesses.
"Areas such as crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending have emerged in recent years and are helping to plug the funding gap to SMEs. We would be cautious about potentially stifling these innovative sectors through further top-down intervention, and await further details on Labour’s proposals."
Labour's other manifesto pledges included raising the National Minimum Wage to "more than £8 an hour by October 2019" and "supporting employers to pay more by using government procurement to promote the Living Wage" and giving "tax rebates to businesses who sign up to paying the Living Wage in the first year of a Labour government".
A Labour government would also abolish the fees system introduced by the coalition to try to curb spurious employment tribunal claims and, in a clear nod to the CWU, "safeguard the public interest in the Royal Mail" including keeping the remaining 30% government share in public ownership.
"We will also support the universal service obligation, ensuring competition does not undermine it and introducing protections as necessary," the manifesto states.
On tax, the Labour party promised neither to increase VAT nor the basic or higher rates of Income Tax or National Insurance, although the shadow chancellor Ed Balls has refused to rule out lowering the earnings threshold at which workers start paying the higher tax rate.
Labour also said it would put small business at the "heart of government" through the creation of a Small Business Administration, which would be responsible for "ensuring contracts are accessible and regulations are designed with small firms in mind".
The 85pp manifesto is fronted by a promise that "every policy in this manifesto is paid for" and that "a Labour government will cut the deficit every year" in an apparent bid to tackle Labour's perceived weakness on public finances.
While the manifesto gives no date for when Labour would eliminate the remaining £90bn of the £163bn deficit it bequeathed to the coalition in 2010, the shadow chancellor Ed Balls has since said that he would eliminate the current budget deficit by the end of the next parliament in 2020.
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