Gary Neville has hit out at Rachel Reeves for her national insurance hike, saying it has hampered employment and “could have been held back”.
The ex-Manchester United star said the chancellor has significantly increased the burden on businesses and that the national insurance increase was “a challenge”.
Mr Neville was a vocal backer of Labour at the last general election, at one point walking in the fells of the Lake District with Sir Keir Starmer for a video endorsing the party.
But he has now joined business leaders and economists in attacking the chancellor’s decisions since entering government.
Critics say Ms Reeves and Sir Keir’s doom and gloom in the wake of the election, as well as the chancellor’s tax-hiking October Budget, held back the economy.
Speaking to Sky’s Business Live, Mr Neville, whose firms employ hundreds of staff, said: “I honestly don’t believe that, to be fair, companies and small businesses should be deterred from employing people. So, I think the national insurance rise was one that I feel probably could have been held back, particularly in terms of the way in which the economy was.
“It’s been a tough economy now for a good few years and I did think that once there was a change of government, and once there was some stability, that we would get some settling.
“But it’s not settling locally in our country, but it is not settling actually, to be fair, in many places in the world either.”
Mr Neville supported the chancellor’s minimum wage increase, which has also piled pressure on some businesses.
“People, to be fair, should be paid more so I don’t think that’s something that you can be critical of,” he added.
But he said: “I do think that the national insurance rise, though, was a challenge.”
The footballer’s comments come months before the chancellor’s second Budget, in which she is seeking to find billions of pounds of tax hikes and spending cuts to fill a hole left by Labour’s chaotic winter fuel U-turn.
Ms Reeves was left with a £5bn gap in her spending plans when Sir Keir abandoned his planned benefit cuts, and could need to find billions more due to the fallout from Donald Trump’s global trade war.
She received a minor boost on Tuesday as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) slightly upgraded its 2025 growth forecast for the UK economy.
The global body’s latest World Economic Outlook said the economy would grow by 1.2 per cent this year, up from an earlier prediction of 1.1 per cent.
