Autumn budget 2022: Yorkshire landlady explains difficulties after Jeremy Hunt announces minimum wage increase

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt outlined £24bn in tax increases and £30bn in spending cuts on Thursday, which he said was required to “rebuild” the UK’s finances. Mr Hunt warned the government’s belt-tightening was much needed after revealing the economy was set to shrink by 1.4 per cent.

All workers will feel the pinch from the new levies, although the chancellor did promise that the national minimum wage would increase to £10.42 on April 1 next year. But while 700,000 companies were promised a £14bn business rates cut, pubs and chip shop owners say they'll suffer as food price inflation hit 16.2 per cent in October.

Andrew Crook, 46, president of the National Federation of Fish Friers and a chip shop owner, said his 10,500 members face “extremely tough times ahead”. He said: “The business rate cut is only affecting half our members but not all of them. We’ve definitely got some extremely tough times ahead.

“I’ve had countless meetings with ministers and government about this, but I’m wasting my time. In the budget today, it’s mostly about tech businesses and advising people to get better jobs.”

Andrew said widespread reform of the VAT system was needed, while adding that minimum wage hikes would make life harder for restaurants and chip shops.

He said: “We’ve been saying for a long time, and the whole of hospitality is saying the same thing, they need to revisit VAT and they need to reform the system as it’s outdated. It’s good that they’ve left money in consumers’ pockets, but the higher minimum wage is going to put a further burden on businesses. It’s not the government that pays it, even though they take the credit for putting it up. It’s right that people get paid, but they’ve got to leave us enough money."

Landlady Nicola Moxham, 43, who runs the Mustard Pot pub in Leeds, agreed with Andrew that a rise in the minimum wage would be hard to stomach.

She said: “The one which affects us is the minimum wage increase. I agree that it needs to go up because people need to pay their heating bills and food. But from my point of view, it’s difficult to pay much more in wages. How much can we put our prices up and still people can afford to go out? It’s a hard balance."

Nicola also more help should be targeted towards the pub industry. She said: “For us, in business rates, we pay £120,000 each year, which is a lot. Restaurants of the same size pay £20,000. For us it’s huge.”

Sacha Lorde, the night time economy adviser for Greater Manchester, added that the hospitality sector would be “deeply concerned” by the budget.

He said: “Operators are being squeezed beyond their ability, and I fear we will now see huge cuts in staffing, reductions in opening hours and venues closing at a faster rate faster than seen during the pandemic. It is a very sad state of affairs and there will be many extremely worried business owners in the UK tonight.”