Business owners across Bucks react to the budget
The Chancellor delivered a number of announcements at yesterday's autumn budget
Last updated 28th Oct 2021
Measures including a 50% discount on business rates and a cut to the planned increase on duty for spirits were revealed by Rishi Sunak yesterday,
In a boost for hospitality, duty rates on beer, cider, wine and spirits will be frozen for another year.
Addressing the Commons, Mr Sunak said: "This will directly support the home of British community life for centuries: pubs.
Even before the pandemic, pubs were struggling: between 2000 and 2019, consumption in the on-trade fell by 40 per cent."
One of the biggest shake up's announced by the Chancellor was the 50 per cent discount off business rates across the hospitality, retail and leisure industries.
Reacting to the news restaurant owner Mark Hall, who runs Jack and Alice in Gerrards Cross, told Greatest Hits: 'It's great news, as a short term plan, it's a shot in the arm for us and that's great and it will continue to help us.
Anything that's discounted from a fixed cost of opening those doors and running those businesses is fantastic, and in particular, if we can trade at normal levels.
We need help and support to be able to manoeuvre through these murky times and it needs to come with all the other things around it, but it's a start and it certainly will help."
Another big talking point from the budget, was the increase in National Living Wage which is set to go up to £9.50 per hour from April 2022.
Commenting on the increase, Mr Hall said: 'I've always supported the fact that hospitality is a very poorly paid industry, that's the nature of it.
The national minimum, wage needs to keep going up because the cost of living goes up. And I'm fully supportive of that."
He added:
"It's very difficult in a small business where you get a hike such as the one coming up because it's gone up so much over the last two or three years.
You can't justify passing the cost onto the customer though, through price increases and everything else.
We have to find a way to make it work because as an industry it's already hard enough, so I am supportive that it goes up."
In Aylesbury, David Berry who owns Temple Wine Bar gave Greatest Hits his thoughts on the budget, saying: "I was hoping he (the Chancellor) might extend the VAT period on our reduced VAT products, but that didn't come through.
You just have to accept that some taxes will go up, some come down. Overall I thought it was a relatively measured budget"
Philippa Batting, Managing Director of Buckinghamshire Business First which supports new, established and growing businesses across the county, was also overwhelmingly positive about the budget.
She said: 'There was lots and lots of content, probably far more than was expected.
It's good news on the business rates reforms, we're a very micro-economy in Buckinghamshire, so that will be very welcome.
Good news on the investment in skills and that expanding of the lifetime skills guarantees.
It's all really good news and the multiply program that is going to be delivered through shared prosperity. That's good news as well"
Asked on whether she thought the budget reflected an acknowledgement of small businesses from the government she said: "I think there is a recognition that 97/98 per cent of the businesses in the country are small businesses and and and we build our economy off that backbone.
And there's work to be done supporting those businesses around productivity. There's work to be done right now in helping those businesses survive and ever-increasing costs."
Other announcements featured in the budget included, a freeze on HGV taxes and new lorry parks to be built in a bid to sort out the supply chain issues.
The Chancellor has also set aside six billion pounds to clear the NHS backlog.