When I met with Tony Brown, the owner of Beales – one of Britain’s oldest department stores – his message was brutally honest: “We’re shutting our doors because of Labour’s Budget.” That should set alarm bells ringing in Downing Street.

Tony told me how Labour’s punitive tax hikes have made the 140-year-old business “unviable.” Increases in employers’ National Insurance, the slashing of business rates relief and increased costs have landed Beales with a £200,000 bill. Now, its last remaining store in Poole is closing, with 30 jobs lost.

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It’s a damning indictment of Labour’s economic management, and Tony’s warning couldn’t be clearer – “If the Chancellor continues down this road, many more businesses will follow.”

Beales’s closure is more than a footnote in retail history – it’s a symbol of the damage Labour is doing to our high streets. Tony’s posters say it all. “Rachel Reeves’ Closing Down Sale.” It’s gallows humour with a very real point. And it speaks for thousands of other business owners who are being driven to the edge by Rachel Reeves’ reckless Budget.

In Hornchurch, I joined my colleague Julia Lopez MP to meet with a series of small, service-based businesses at the heart of the community – Wyndham Hair, Utopia Beauty, and The Vanilla Room. What we heard was deeply troubling. Owners and staff spoke of mounting costs, collapsing margins and hard choices – many of which threaten jobs and apprenticeships.

Johnpaul Wyndham, of Wyndham Hair, put it plainly: “Rising employment costs and the reduction in business rates relief are forcing businesses like ours to make incredibly tough decisions – often at the expense of the next generation of stylists.”

His call for urgent cost relief isn’t asking for special favours. He’s asking for a fighting chance.

At Utopia Beauty, Stefania Rossi shared the brutal financial reality facing her salon: “Our business rates more than doubled overnight. National Insurance contributions per employee have gone up by a third. Utilities have trebled. We simply cannot absorb these costs and grow.”

Her words speak for thousands of entrepreneurs who feel ignored and undervalued by this Government.

And then there was Hayley Clayden, of The Vanilla Room, who warned that without urgent support, salons like hers will vanish from the high street. “NIC increases, and skyrocketing rates are strangling our ability to stay open,” she said. These are not isolated voices. These are warning shots.

Labour wants to brand this as a Budget for ‘working people’, but as Tony Brown told me, business owners are working people too. They put in the hours, take the risks and create the jobs.

Labour’s economic policies are turning their backs on these very people, punishing the risk-takers and disincentivising growth. The idea that tax hikes on businesses won’t affect ordinary working families is not only wrong – it’s dishonest.

Let’s be absolutely clear. You can’t support working people without supporting the businesses that employ them. Apprenticeships, training opportunities, local jobs – all of these are at risk because Labour has failed to understand the realities of running a small business in Britain today.

The Conservatives are on the side of these businesses. We believe in a low tax, a pro-growth economy that rewards hard work and enterprise. We understand that sustainable public finances come not from squeezing business dry, but from fostering an environment in which they can thrive.

As Shadow Chancellor, and as an entrepreneur, who has built businesses from scratch, I will continue to hold Labour to account for every job lost, every apprenticeship cut and every closed sign going up on our high streets. Because behind each shuttered shop is a family, a livelihood, a future that deserved better.

If Labour continues on this path, Britain’s high streets will become little more than vape shops and empty fronts.

Rachel Reeves has broken trust, and her budget is breaking Britain. It doesn’t have to be this way.

The Conservatives will do what Labour won’t. Back business, back jobs and stop this country from becoming one giant closing down sale.