Few industries will emerge unscathed from Rachel Reeves’ brutal budget. As if her tax smash and grab wasn’t bad enough, Labour’s employment rights bill is set to deepen the misery. Just this week, speaking to our podcast ‘A Nation of Taxpayers’, care home chief executive and serial entrepreneur Robert Kilgore warned that the government’s economic agenda could end up killing the care home. As if things weren’t tough enough for pensioners, their hopes of a comfortable and dignified final few years are receding into the distance.
The latest industry to warn of impending doom is Britain’s beloved seaside piers. These iconic institutions and the towns they are attached to have had a challenging time since cheap and easy European travel became available. But there have been successful attempts at regeneration and revival. Look at the brilliant work of Phillip Miller, who has almost single handedly transformed Southend-on-Sea with his Adventure Island theme park and aquarium.
Labour’s economic agenda will hit industries like these particularly hard. Like much of hospitality, they depend on part time, often irregular or seasonal labour. Particularly younger employees at or around minimum wage. They are also energy-intensive.
So take Labour’s mad dash for net zero, their increase in the minimum wage, the increase to national insurance (and cut to the threshold at which employers pay), and throw in an employment rights bill that will make short term or flexible working more difficult and you have a perfect storm descending on our seaside towns.
For piers or other attractions that are family businesses, they are also staring down the barrel of the reduction in business property relief — a tax change which should be receiving the same attention as its equally cruel cousin the family farm tax.
Now I know of nobody who wouldn’t like to see cleaner energy or an increase in pay for the lowest paid. But Labour’s clueless cabinet have no business experience and therefore no idea just how much damage they are doing with their changes.
