During the election, the Labour party promised voters that if elected they would not raise taxes on working people.
Last month’s budget, however, told a completely different story.
Together with an unwarranted attack on our exceptional small businesses, our dedicated care providers and our hardworking farmers, Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ budget is now set to have far-reaching consequences on working people across our community – completely airbrushing from history the promises Labour made during the general election campaign.
Small businesses, the backbone of our local economy, are truly bearing the brunt of Labour party policy. According to recent data, the average shop will now see their rates jump from £3,500 to over £8,600 next April because of this budget. Costs for pubs will increase from £4,000 to £9,500, and for a small restaurant in our town, that figure climbs from £5,000 to £12,000.
These same business owners could now be forced to freeze wages, reduce their workforce, raise prices, or even reconsider their futures in business, all to the detriment of those very same working people the Labour party promised to protect.
This is not what people voted for.
Similarly, the impact on care providers is devastating. The government has explicitly chosen not to exempt our local GP surgeries, hospices, charities or care homes from increases in ’ National Insurance , piling tens of thousands of pounds of extra costs onto these already stretched institutions – a move which the British Medical Association warns could lead to closures.
In fact, analysis by the Nuffield Trust shows that the extra NI contributions for employers set out in the Budget will cost the adult social care sector more than £900 million next year, wiping out the extra £600 million promised to local authorities for social care.
And Farmers, too, are reeling from the effects of this budget.
Far from being the wealthy landowners that Labour likes to imagine, the vast majority of family farmers are cash-poor and many are struggling simply to break even – with some earning less than the minimum wage. Now, local farmers will face an accelerated reduction in delinked payment rates, higher taxes for pick-up vehicles, new taxes on fertilisers – and an incredibly damaging cap on inheritance tax which could cause the end of family farming as we know it.
Just last weekend, I was proud to join thousands of farmers up and down the country protesting against the consequences of these disastrous proposals. It is crystal clear that this Labour Government does not understand rural communities, and what’s worse, they don’t appear to want to listen to them either.
To govern is to choose, and put simply, Labour has made the wrong choices.
It is not, however, too late to avoid these consequences.
Exempting GP surgeries, care providers, and hospices from the National Insurance increase would provide immediate relief. Scrapping the cap on agricultural tax reliefs and reversing hikes in business rates would give farmers and small businesses the breathing room they need to survive and thrive.
It is high time that this new government supports the very same working people it promised to represent during the general election.
The British people are starting to lose faith.
