The first full day post-Budget has not been a happy one. While Labour’s spinners are hard at work trying to convince the nation – and themselves – that Rachel Reeves’s fiscal statement was a success, real people across the country are reeling from Wednesday’s announcement. Mr S wrote yesterday about how leading figures in the hospitality industry were quick to express their outrage at Reeves’s call to raise alcohol duty – but this isn’t the only sector in shock at the Chancellor’s proposals.
Salon Employers Association founder Toby Dicker spoke on Sky News today about the impact Labour’s Budget will have on his business. At times finding himself emotional, and at one point having to stop to gather himself, the visibly shocked businessman told Kay Burley: ‘I’m angry and sad and shellshocked…’. Setting out his case, Dicker told viewers:
The initial reaction from our supporters is, to be honest, shell shock. It is much, much, much worse than we ever thought it could be. I thought the worst scenario would be £75,000 for my business – it’s cost me £127,000. [The worst bit is] particularly employers’ NIC.
200 people from our industry wrote specifically a 17-page paper that went into the ministry. We’ve been speaking to HMRC for five years, we’ve been speaking to the Department for Business and Trade for five years. They’ve promised us things that they haven’t delivered on – and that’s forced most of our industry into the gig economy.
The gig economy didn’t get touched by this Budget. You can be a delivery company turning over £1.5bn, making £120 million in profit and from my calculations – although I’m doing it all on my own – you don’t pay a penny. What the hell? I pay £86,000. Why? Why? Just tell me why?
Tearing up, the businessman pushed on:
You haven’t listened to us for successive administrations. We’ve tried to tell you – and you haven’t listened. I’m sorry, I’m angry and sad and shell-shocked and our industry is totally done. They have no choice now. They’re just going to say: we have to go into this gig economy, we have to get rid of all our apprentices. We can’t afford it.
It comes after Reeves’s announcement that employers’ national insurance will rise by 1.2 per cent – a move that even the OBR has suggested could result in workforce participation to fall. The Labour government was insistent that this Budget would ‘protect the payslips of working people’, but it seems that already that promise is starting to fall apart…
Watch the clip here:
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