Miliband: Labour will be 'small business party' - Telegraph.co.uk

of a wave of new towns and allow communities to expand through development, Mr Miliband will say, raising fears of more building on green belt.

Mr Miliband, who has previously attacked some big companies as "predatory", will present his business tax changes as the best way to support job creation.

Corporation tax is paid by limited companies including major corporations. It does not apply to sole traders and traditional partnerships, meaning many small companies are exempt.

The Coalition has cut corporation tax repeatedly, arguing that doing so is the best way to attract big international companies.

Mr Miliband will argue that smaller companies are more deserving of support. His cut would be worth an average of £450 per business property, Labour said.

"For too long in this country, we've supported some businesses and not others," Mr Miliband will say.

"Most of the jobs of the future are going to be created in a large number of small businesses, not a small number of large businesses."

The business rate reduction would apply to properties valued at less than £50,000, Labour said, estimating that "hundreds of thousands" of companies would benefit.

In 2015, if it won the general election, Labour would cut business rates back to the level of the previous year, then freeze them for 2016. House of Commons Library figures put the cost of the cut in business rates at £450? million in 2016/17.

Mr Miliband would also scrap Coalition plans to cut corporation tax from 21 per cent to 20 per cent in 2015. Treasury figures show that would cost £785? million in the first year.

Labour aides said that the £335?million difference would also be spent on cutting business rates, promising that total taxation on companies would not rise as a result of the changes.

Mr Miliband has faced questions about his performance as leader as Labour's opinion poll lead over the Conservatives has narrowed in recent months.

He will use his conference speech to argue that his "One Nation" vision of Britain as a country in which government backs small businesses and consumers. The Coalition, he will argue, governs for "the privileged few".

Labour wants to fight the 2015 election on living standards, arguing that the Coalition has overseen real reductions in spending power for most households since it took office.

As part of that argument, Mr Miliband will invoke the 1980 campaign slogan of Ronald Reagan, the former US president, telling voters: "At the general election in 2015, you should ask yourself, am I better off than I was five years ago?"