FSB NI calls on Stormont to mitigate fallout from UK Budget
Roger Pollen, Head of FSB Northern Ireland, will be giving evidence to the NI Assembly’s Committee for the Economy on Wednesday 4 December at 10am on the challenges that businesses across Northern Ireland face, including the impact of changes to employers` National Insurance contributions following the budget.
In advance of the evidence session, Roger Pollen said: “Businesses in Northern Ireland face myriad challenges, and hopes had been raised that a new Government would bring ‘clarity, certainty, transparency and stability’ as set out by the Labour Party in January this year when they published ‘A New Partnership – A long-term plan for Government-:-business relations to power our economy and society’.
“Unfortunately those hopes evaporated in advance of the budget with rumours filling an information vacuum.
“At FSB, we chose our ground carefully and sought to secure commitments to protect smaller employers and the sectors that were still suffering huge post-covid pressures – Retail, Hospitality, Leisure and Tourism.
“When it eventually came, the budget was delivered in difficult circumstances so it wasn’t a surprise that it set out a range of major tax increases – but the full extent, combined with the increases to the National Living Wage, was well beyond the worst expectations of most business owners.
“Those areas on which FSB had really focused – increasing the Employers National Insurance Contributions ‘Allowance’, and rates relief for Retail, Hospitality, Leisure and Tourism ‘in England’ – were secured, which was welcome – but overall, businesses were utterly unprepared for the tax hike they experienced.
“This is where the NI Executive needs to step in and help local businesses.
“The Chancellor saw fit to grant business rates discounts for a fourth consecutive year in England – for Retail, Hospitality, Leisure and Tourism businesses.
“It is little short of scandalous that Northern Ireland has received the ‘Barnett consequential’ of this 75% discount for the past three years yet failed to pass it on to local businesses – whilst at the same time ruing the demise of high streets across every constituency for which a rates discount would have been a vital resource.
“The Budget has had a chilling effect on business start-ups, investment and growth, including dramatic changes to Agricultural Property Relief and Business Asset Disposal Relief, so Governments in Westminster and at Stormont will need to strain every sinew to find ways to support businesses and to remove barriers to growth, as they re-define the political and business landscape.”
