Gloucester Businesses Foresee Price Increases Following New Budget Announcement

A fish and chip shop proprietor expressed feeling “put in a corner” after the Labour party’s initial budget in 14 years. Chancellor Rachel Reeves presented the budget on Wednesday, outlining significant measures such as a £40bn increase in taxes and a rise in employers’ National Insurance contributions effective April 2025. The tax increases, previously revealed by Reeves and characterized as the largest in a generation, are expected to primarily impact employers. Consequently, several businesses in Gloucester have indicated they will need to raise prices for their clientele. Shahram Navard, who owns Ye Olde Restaurant & Fish Shoppe, stated that his establishment has contended with escalating prices for the past two years. Speaking to the BBC, Mr Navard commented: “Increasing the National Insurance contribution for the employer and rising minimum wage, all of these together, it would just basically put us in a corner.” Adrian Ball, proprietor of Kara hair and beauty salon located on Southgate Street, projected that the adjustments to National Insurance would incur an extra annual cost of £10,000 to £12,000 for his business. “On top of that, minimum wage changing is another cost which we have to pass on to customers,” Mr Ball stated, adding, “Prices will have to go up, so the cost of a haircut will go up.” Concurrently, Harrison Yorke from Eleven Builders remarked that the increases in minimum wage and taxes will make operations “certainly going to be difficult” for smaller enterprises. He elaborated: “That will transfer into increased prices and that, naturally, has a knock-on effect to the consumer.” Yorke further asserted: “Again, the realities of some of the stuff [Reeves] is saying is driving prices up.”