After months of leaks, speculation and mixed signals about next week’s Budget, small business owners in Leeds West & Pudsey — the Chancellor’s own constituency — say they want one thing above all else: certainty.
Meeting with NotLtd just hours after it was confirmed that an income tax rise had been dropped, local entrepreneurs said they were still braced for new tax measures and fearful that small firms could once again be treated as “easy pickings”, as they felt they were in the Chancellor’s first Budget last October.
For Zulfi Hussain, owner of Deeva restaurant in Farsley and two more eateries across Leeds, last year’s employer National Insurance rise and minimum wage hike had “death sentence” consequences for smaller businesses. “Bigger organisations can ride out the storm,” he said. “But for some small businesses, it’s been devastating.” Hussain, who works closely with St Gemma’s Hospice, said charities and care organisations had also been hit hard.
Hussain worries Reeves may lower the VAT registration threshold, a move heavily rumoured in Whitehall. This year he bought a parade of independent shops in Farsley to prevent a supermarket takeover — but said a lower VAT threshold would force him, as landlord, to register for VAT and raise rents for tenants including a beauty salon and cake shop. What small businesses need, he said, is the opposite: “Increase the VAT threshold — even lower the VAT rate for hospitality, like they did during lockdown.”
Down the road, Ben Smith, who recently moved his mobile phone repair company onto Farsley high street, said his biggest concern is the Government scrapping small business rates relief. “It would put real pressure on us,” said Smith, who has repaired phones for 11 years. “We’ve taken a risk opening a shop, but we can’t absorb everything.”
In Pudsey, butcher Adrian Thorp, who recently opened Blake Henry’s with his son, is more sanguine. Having worked in Leeds Market all his life, he opened the business “for my son’s future” and now employs nine people. “You can’t have a free NHS and not pay taxes,” he said. But even he admits employer contributions and pension payments keep him “constantly busy”.
At Springfield Mills in Farsley — a former industrial site now home to dozens of artisan and tech businesses — The Marshmallowist co-founder Jenny Simms says last year’s employer NI increase directly halted expansion. “It meant the cost to us would be the equivalent of hiring two people instead of one,” she said. “So we didn’t do it.” She suggested a more targeted approach: “Maybe Amazon could pay a bit more,” she laughed. Simms also said childcare support remains a pressing issue for her mostly female workforce.
Tech entrepreneur Andy Kear, founder of Clockwork Creative Technology in Armley, wants greater clarity on R&D tax relief. His business writes software and runs servers for clients from West Yorkshire Police to national supermarket chains, yet he finds innovation support difficult to navigate. “It’s a very in-depth proposal. A bit more ease of use and clarity would be good,” he said. Beyond that, his message to Reeves is simple: “Leave us alone.”
Across Leeds West & Pudsey, sentiment was consistent: businesses feel strained by the last Budget’s surprise tax rises, anxious about the next round, and desperate for stability. Many say the Government should avoid further burdens on small firms and instead support the entrepreneurs expected to fuel the UK’s economic recovery.
