𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Shopkeepers have warned that this Christmas could be the “worst on record” for businesses, as fears grow over what Chancellor Rachel Reeves will announce in her Autumn budget later this month.

David Frais, 61, who has run TV World Ltd on Chatham High Street in Kent for 30 years, said Labour’s tax policies were “destroying” local traders and forcing shopkeepers to lose staff.

“Sometimes I have to pay just to work,” he said, adding that his business “dropped £60,000 in turnover” in the first six months of the year.

Mr Frais said his business once employed eleven staff, but that had now dropped to just four, after being hit by a combination of high National Insurance, and the rise in the National Living Wage brought in by Labour.

Now his evenings are spent doing deliveries, at the end of a full days work in his shop on the high street, just to make up for the shortfall.

“The high street, well what’s left of it, took a huge kicking in the last budget,” he said. “Reeves putting up National Insurance, and the minimum wage, just led us to shed jobs.”

‘You cannot tax your way to growth’

Many small business in kent felt betrayed by Labour’s approach to taxes, according to Mr Frais. “Labour basically doubled rates when they came in, Reeves has been running the country like an amateur,” he told the Express.

The Autumn Budget, due to be delivered on 26 November, could contain any number of changes to taxation, and there are growing fears the chancellor could increase income tax, after repeatedly failing to rule out such a move.

Mr Frais said that doing so would “finish off” the High Street, telling this paper that “all of us on the High Street are not happy. Chatham doesn’t need to be hit even more. Labour do not have a clue how to run this country.”

The Kent businessman urged Ms Reeves to use the Budget to ease pressure on his customers, saying that changes to tax levels leave people with less to spend over the counter. Mr Frais added: “When will people understand, you cannot tax your way to growth.”

Ms Reeves has persistently said that her budget will focus on growth.

‘Labour do not have a clue’

“Next budget, please, just ease the pressure off,” Mr Frais said, adding “you cannot tax people when they have no money, everyone is hurting.”

Across the country, small firms have echoed Mr Frais’ concerns, with industry bodies already warning that Britain’s retail sector faces a harsh winter, as consumer spending weakens and energy costs remain high.

Mr Frais said he feared another punishing budget would accelerate the decline of local shopping, that already been hollowed out by rising costs.

“The high street is already being hammered,” he said “we need Reeves to ease off a bit.”

A Treasury spokesperson said: “We are creating a fairer business rates system to protect the high street, support investment, and level the playing field by introducing permanently lower tax rates for retail, hospitality, and leisure properties from April that will be sustainably funded by a new, higher rate on less than 1% of the most valuable business properties.”