The Chancellor has been accused of stifling business with huge tax changes.
Rachel Reeves has been slammed by thousands of businesses (Image: Getty)
Rachel Reeves has been told by a whopping 5,500 small businesses that firms face destruction. In a letter shared by former Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe, entrepreneurs wrote that they feel as if they are being punished in the face of a business rate revaluation. The letter read: “We are business owners – pubs, cafes, shops and local employers – who have kept going through a brutal decade. We’ve dealt with rising rents, soaring energy bills, higher insurance, inflation, staffing pressures, Covid debt, and additional tax. We adapted, borrowed, cut our own wages and worked longer hours just to stay open.
“Now we’re facing a business rates revaluation that, for many of us, will be the final straw. Business rates are a fixed cost we can’t avoid. We can’t move online or relocate to a warehouse. We trade from real premises, on real high streets, serving real communities. We are being punished for doing so.”
The businesspeople added: “This is about survival. For many businesses, even a modest rise means slashing staff, cutting hours, raising prices, or closing altogether.
“We’re asking for fairness and common sense. Please carry out an urgent review of the impact of the business rates revaluation on small businesses and put proper mitigation in place.
“If our businesses go, they will not come back.”
Mr Lowe said: “The scale of the response speaks for itself. Over 5,500 businesses, and the number continues to grow.
“Viable, hard-working firms that have been ground down year after year and are now being pushed too far.
“Business rates punish physical presence. They punish community businesses. And unless the Chancellor acts quickly, we will see permanent closures on high streets across the country.”
He added in a punchy warning: “It will be apocalyptic, I promise you that.”
It comes as it was reported yesterday that the Treasury is understood to be preparing a support package for the pub industry, due to be announced in the coming days, following an outcry over the impact of a major hike in business rates.
The move is the latest in a series of U-turns from the Government, which has also backed down on major welfare reforms due to pressure from backbenchers, and has partially scaled back inheritance tax on farms following lobbying by the sector.
Asked by Sky News why the Government kept making U-turns, Anna Turley, chairwoman of the Labour Party, said: “I don’t buy this is a U-turn. This is actually about listening.
“I think it’s a sign of a Government that is actually in touch with people, that is listening to people, and that is responding.”
