Northamptonshire business owners give mix reaction to the Budget

As the dust settles following the Budget, how have organisations and businesses across Northamptonshire reacted to the government’s proposals?

On Wednesday, Chancellor Rachel Reeves chose to tax big and spend big.

Headlines include the decision to lift the two-child benefit cap from April 2026 and increase the minimum wage, but many people could also find themselves paying more tax with thresholds being frozen for longer.

People working in different sectors across the county have shared their views on how they feel the proposals will impact them.

Miranda Richardson, the landlady of The Squirrels pub in Duston, said the hospitality sector “needed” a reduction in VAT but got “nothing”.

“VAT was huge in hospitality and a reduction for us was a massive thing – and nothing; that’s what we wanted, that’s what we needed,” she said.

Ms Richardson added wage increases would “not help” the business and would affect all members of staff.

Mark Gee, who runs the Crown Pub in Wellingborough, said the hospitality sector was “a bit of a disaster” following the Chancellor’s budget.

He said increases to minimum wage, beer prices and a lack of reduction in VAT meant he would have to change opening times to make “necessary” savings.

“No relief at all on VAT, which kind of kills you really, because anything you do to try and make [money], you get taxed on,” he said.

“The minimum wage in principle seems like a great thing for the youngsters and seasonal workers.

“People just can’t afford to pay that so now, like ourselves in the pub game, we have to sort of pass it on by saving money by opening up later in the week than we used to [and] shutting earlier – it’s just a spiral of a nightmare really.”

Jane Calcott, a trustee for Kettering Food Bank, said the removal of the two-child benefit cap would “make an enormous difference” to large families and could ease pressures on food banks.

“We get very large families coming to the food bank because they’re the ones who are struggling the most,” she said.

“It said it’s on average £100 a week for families with more than two children, which is a massive amount of money as long as the parents or the people looking after the children use the money wisely.

“For the children then it should be an enormous benefit.

“It will be interesting to compare the data from the previous year once that actually happens to see if we can see a difference,” she said.

Martin Mason, the director of shoe firm Tricker’s, free apprenticeships for under-25s “would be very welcome” but he wanted more support for British manufacturing.

Reeves announced apprenticeships for under 25-year-olds will be free for small and medium-sized businesses.

Mr Mason said free training would attract “more people into business and vocational training” instead of “one path towards university”, but he criticised the lack of business rate relief for industrial businesses.

“Anything to support British manufacturing has got to be a bonus, but it didn’t seem there was an awful lot there for business,” he said.

“We’ve had Covid to deal with, we’ve had Brexit, which had a profound effect on our exports into Europe; they could have done a lot more,” he added.

Mike Carson, 59, who works in the automotive industry, said he felt “punished” in budgets over recent years.

“My ambition was to retire at the end of this year, but that’s going to have to be delayed, not just because of changes to the budget, but they are a big contributing factor,” he said.

Mr Carson said changes to salary sacrifice and National Insurance contributions would mean further costs.

“For me, it’s just take, take, take all the time and everything mentioned in the budget yesterday, I can’t see any bonuses in life for me,” he added.

“It’s people like me giving back and having to pay out more; I think a lot of people are thinking ‘Gosh, when will I ever be able to retire? Am I going to be working into my seventies?’.”

Jenni Smith, the owner of Duston Village Bakery also criticised minimum wage increases and said the only choice she had was “to put the prices up”.

“It’s the minimum wage that kills us massively; I’ve got 16 staff for a little small business,” she said.

“I used to spend a lot of time out in the bakehouse, baking cakes for people, but I can’t do that now because I need to be in the shop because I can’t afford to pay people to do the shop work – so I’m just worn out,” she added.