To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of employee share schemes on staff retention in UK companies.
Answered on
10 March 2025
The Government offers four tax-advantaged employee share schemes, which all enable employers to offer their employees tax-advantaged shares or share options in their business. These are Save as You Earn (SAYE), Share Incentive Plan (SIP), Enterprise Management Incentives (EMI), and Company Share Option Plan (CSOP). These schemes are popular, generous and internationally competitive.
A call for evidence on SAYE and SIP ran from June to August 2023. It sought views on whether the schemes are meeting their policy objectives and opportunities to improve and simplify them. The Government is considering the responses to the call for evidence, and is grateful to those who took the time to respond.
In 2021-22, a review of the EMI scheme found that the scheme remained effective at achieving its policy aims, including employee retention. The review was expanded to consider if CSOP should be reformed to further support companies as they grow beyond the scope of EMI. Following this report, CSOP limits were expanded from April 2023.
The Government keeps all tax reliefs under review, to ensure they continue to meet their policy objectives in a way that is fair and effective. HMRC release annual statistics on the tax-advantaged employee share schemes, which can be found at GOV.UK here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/employee-share-scheme-statistics