South Yorkshire business leader slams Chancellor’s Autumn Budget as ‘built on sand’

A leading voice for businesses in South Yorkshire has criticised the Chancellor’s latest Budget, warning that it fails to address the fundamental issues facing the UK economy and offers little clarity for firms already battling rising costs and uncertainty.

Matt Travis, President of Barnsley & Rotherham Chamber of Commerce, said yesterday’s Budget statement missed a vital opportunity to reset course and give businesses the support they need to grow. In a strongly worded statement, he argued that the measures announced will do little to restore confidence – and in some cases may add to the confusion and challenges already facing employers across the region.

The full statement reads: “Last year the Chancellor pledged to fix the foundations of Britain’s broken economy, today’s announcement has reaffirmed that she is continuing to build those foundations on sand.

Following months of speculation, which has driven uncertainty and seen businesses place spending and recruitment decisions on hold, the announcements made has done little to address the very real problems that many businesses are facing.

Figures released by the OBR revealed that growth will increase by just 0.5% next year, and likely to remain largely stagnant for the remainder of the parliamentary term. At the same time, productivity figures have been downgraded and inflation is expected to continue to rise.

I am very concerned that the decision to tax and spend will starve Britain’s economy of the oxygen it desperately needs to prosper – and with the spectre of the Employment Rights Bill likely to impose additional burdens on businesses of all sizes, I am under no illusions that many will continue to face immense challenges, particularly when it comes to recruiting and retaining the vital employees needed to boost productivity and drive growth.

Having said that, I welcome the decision to reduce the cost on SMEs when it comes to training apprentices. This will undoubtedly help some of Britain’s smallest businesses, and the decision to provide additional rate relief for the ailing leisure, retail and hospitality sectors is a positive step. But I would liked to have seen the Chancellor go further.

This was not a simple budget and the decisions made today will add more complexity to the already tangled tax system and with many of the announcements unlikely to come to fruition for some time, I suspect it will result in more speculation and uncertainty in the months and years to come.

Many of the businesses I speak to are still reeling from the NI, employer pension contributions and changes to the national minimum wage introduced last year. Today offered a chance for the Chancellor to reset course, simplify the tax system and create an environment to enable businesses to prosper – instead the chancellor did the opposite, creating more confusion and chaos whilst loosening the purse strings to appease her own backbenchers.

It’s a budget that will leave almost every working person a little worse off, fails to address the eyewatering levels of public spending, and like so much of the speculation in the run up to today’s announcement, leaves more questions than answers."