REGIONAL accounts Bishop Fleming, which has an office in College Yard, Worcester, has issued a ten-point wish-list for the Chancellor's budget in March.

Matthew Lee, the firm's managing partner and chairman of Kreston UK, said: "We're hearing the pre-election promises made by David Cameron, Ed Milliband,and the other party leaders, but on March 18 George Osborne, will deliver his pre-election budget. If Mr Osborne wants to make a difference to Britain's ability to sustain its recovery, there are ten items that he should announce, without waiting for the general election."

Mr Lee's top five list includes:

1: Re-think business rates, which he says are an iniquitous tax unfairly based on inaccurate property values and unfairly guaranteed to rise by being uniquely linked to inflation, rather than being linked to business performance. UK businesses pay vastly more in business rates than any EU competitor.

2: Scrap the auto-enrolment pensions scheme for very small employers as this is proving to be punitively costly to administer. It would be so much cheaper and easier to increase National Insurance payments, with those revenues ring-fenced for a better state pension.

3: Agree to abandon the fuel-duty escalator right now. It has been postponed, but while oil prices are falling they could easily be reintroduced when oil prices recover, restoring Britain's uncompetitive fuel prices.

4: Extend the 65-plus bonds to everyone: The current scheme could be challenged under age-discrimination rules. The Government has to borrow and pay interest, so it makes more sense for those lenders to be UK citizens of whatever age.

5: Extend the £500,000 capital allowance or five years immediately. This allowance ends on December 31, 2015, but business planning requires certainty for a longer period. Investment is important to growth, but cannot be planned on a short-term timescale for major projects.

Other proposals include a tax on foreign lorry drivers, cutting the 45 per cent income tax rate to 40 per cent, scrapping "complex" tax bands and "stop stealing from students" who do not get their annual personal allowance.

Mr Lee added: "We're now being barraged with pre-election messages from all the political parties, but George Osborne has the opportunity to deliver a budget that can make a real difference to the operating environment for Britain's businesses. We can only hope that he has the vision and courage to do those things now, rather than making them promises if we all agree to vote for his party next May."