Local spokesperson urges government to focus on business friendly measures
Ahead of the Autumn Budget on 26 November 2025, Hampshire Chamber of Commerce is calling on the Chancellor of the Exchequer to focus on business-friendly measures
With the autumn budget right around the corner, a local spokesperson is urging the government to focus on business-friendly measures.
Ross McNally is the executive chair and chief executive of Hampshire Chamber of Commerce.
He's told us that due to the current economic situation, businesses are in desperate need of a budget that doesn't add additional financial burden.
"the economy is not in a good shape and part of that has been as a response to the budget last year, which really did set businesses into a difficult position because cost of employment went up. We saw the National Insurance contributions rise.
That was also blended with the with the rise in minimum wage. And of course we do have the Employment Rights Bill coming down the track and so businesses have probably lost confidence and that's a key ingredient in in driving the economy and driving growth."
McNally says he has been in communication with various local businesses ahead of the budget next week
"The message is loud and clear to the Chancellor that there's got to be no additional burden on businesses. I think that the businesses feel that they have paid their way over the past 12 months
The increase in National Insurance contributions is a large sum. The impact is that businesses have not been hiring. Some have actually been making redundancies and businesses just want to feel confident. They want to see a budget that is going to bring a level of optimism to the future."
McNally emphasises the importance of optimism for business owners
"Most businesses are very optimistic about their own business and that is because they are half-glass-full people. They get up in the morning and they decide, what can they do to transform the nature of their business.
Businesses want to have a reason to take their money that they may be holding for one particular purpose and take a few risks with it and actually see where they can develop new opportunities, new services, new products, because we are an innovative county and we've got a lot of, you know, new opportunities, but they need to be grasped.
And the only way that changes is when businesses feel confident and feel optimistic."
Finally Ross McNally gave his predictions as to what he expected to happen next Wednesday
"I think we're going to see lots of small, slightly complex tax adjustments, which overall, if they work, would bring in the monies that the government needs, but it wouldn't have a shocking headline for either the business community or for consumers.
The government would hope that that would mean that there would not be a further erosion of confidence. That's what I think will happen.
I just don't believe that we can tax businesses more because businesses is what drives helps to drive the economy. I think businesses have been taxed in the last 12 months and actually prior to that sufficiently.
What we need to do is to release the energy and release the confidence in a way that they start to bring their investment into into play and that will grow the economy and grow the productivity."