'RIDICULOUS' £3K BUDGET HIKE FOR SMALL SHOPS

FURIOUS shop owners claim Rachel Reeves' Budget bombshells will pile an extra £3,300 on bills and wreck many small businesses.

- Martyn Brown

Store bosses say rocketing costs may force them to close down. They blasted rises in national insurance and the living wage, combined with cuts to business rate relief, as "ridiculous".

The latest analysis of the Chancellor's Budget shows smaller independent stores face punishing extra costs of £3,303 next year, largely made up of Ms Reeves’ reforms that will increase employers’ NI contributions by 1.2% plus the living wage rise to £12.21, according to the sector’s RN magazine.

That figure is based on a “typical” shop that receives full small business rates relief exemption with two-full-time and three parttime employees, one of whom is aged between 18 and 20.

One Bristol shop owner branded Labour’s Budget “ridiculous”.

David Angel, a director of I Love My PC, said: “We were left spitting feathers at the announcement.

“How much more can they put on us?...It’s absurd. She [Ms Reeves] has not considered other models she could have introduced to help small businesses to grow. Not beat the hell out of them.”

A major Budget blow to small firms is the cost of the rise in the minimum wage for workers aged 21 or above, which goes up by 77p an hour in April. The increase for staff aged 18 to 20 is steeper: a £1.40 rise to £10.