Responding to the Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s speech at the Conservative Party Conference, National Chair of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), Martin McTague, said:
“Focussing on what’s really important is crucial at a time when the cost of doing business crisis is biting deep.
“The Government must focus on delivering promptly its commitments to help small firms with soaring energy bills and to reverse the hike in National Insurance.
“When Parliament returns, the legislation needed to implement these two changes must be achieved swiftly, so that the much-needed benefit of them will be felt by small firms by November, as they’re expecting.
“It was welcome to hear the Chancellor re-commit to scrapping changes to IR35 rules, cancelling a planned rise in Corporation Tax, and permanently increasing the Annual Investment Allowance.
“It is right to bring forward supply side reforms to get growth and support small firms.
“There remains scope for further support by tackling poor payment practices by bigger businesses towards their smaller suppliers and contractors. Strong, clear action on this would protect cashflow and the survival of small firms, while not incurring a cost to taxpayers.
“Many headwinds remain, not least inflation and rising interest rates.
“With the right conditions, small business entrepreneurs are the drivers of economic growth, and therefore it is vital that stringent efforts are made to ensure an economic climate in which they can invest, innovate and grow.”