George Osborne calls for businesses to back lower taxes

“At the moment we are having a pretty big argument about the size of the State and who should be taxed and what the right levels of taxation are. If we don’t get much voice from the business community then that’s more difficult."

He acknowledged the "bad headlines" generated by the Budget, which included the decision to freeze the higher personal allowance for retired people, dubbed the "granny tax".

The Chancellor also faced a backlash over the proposed cap on tax relief for charitable donations, which has since been dropped.

He acknowledged moves to lower the top rate of tax were politically delicate.

But he added: "There’s more of an anti-business sentiment which has spilt over from understandable public anger about what went wrong in the financial system."