Family Businesses

Sarah Bool Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Bool (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

Since coming into office last July, this Labour Government have launched an all-out attack on businesses in this country—an attack on 5.5 million SMEs that represent more than 99% of our business population, and small businesses in my constituency, of which 88% is agricultural land, are front and centre of that assault. Not only are our farmers being hit by the cut to agricultural property relief and business property relief, but small businesses that sell their produce, such as Barnowl Farm Shop in Evenley and Towbury Court in Towcester, will also be hit by those taxes. My farmers do not deserve that. They have only ever worked hard, day and night, generation after generation.

Small businesses on Brackley high street, such as Defern Beauty, have told me that they might have to cut their highly successful apprenticeship programmes, as the tax hikes mean they can no longer afford to keep apprentices on. This Government are destroying small businesses and our high street. Our local pubs, of which there are more than 90 in my constituency, will also be hurt by the reductions in business rates relief for hospitality businesses—another punitive tax rise at a time when many of our locals are really struggling.

The Conservatives left office with one of the lowest unemployment figures recorded in recent history, but after the Hallowe’en Budget, we are seeing the number of vacancies fall and growth slow down. That is a result of the choices that this Government have made: a choice to give above-inflation pay rises to their union paymasters and a choice to target our farmers and destroy their life’s work for 22.5 hours of NHS spending. That was not driven by a growth agenda but by a socialist ideology. It is also a choice to change business property relief and destroy our local pubs. The Government are hiking taxes, and it is the working people across this country—the working people they promised to protect—who will pay the ultimate price. Labour is not working.

Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill

Sarah Bool Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 25th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Bool (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

The Carrdus school in my constituency is a small private school—it is not an Eton and it is not a Harrow—but it has already announced that it may be forced to close mid-academic year because of the Budget and this Bill.

I met the headteacher the other day. She is a passionate leader who is absolutely devastated by this. She mentioned many of the points that my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) made about the four main areas. She explained that 80% of the school’s costs are on staff salaries, so the increase in employers’ national insurance contributions is crippling. The changes to business property relief are challenging, and imposing VAT on school fees means that the uplift in fees is unsustainable for many parents. They simply cannot absorb this tax.

After these consistent hits, the school faces little choice but, potentially, to close. That means that 110 children, including children with EHCPs, will now have to plan to be rehomed into different schools, with all the disruption that that causes. The burden also falls on our local councils, which now have the responsibility to find different state places somewhere that will take those children with EHCPs. This is happening when council budgets are already stretched. Our state schools are at capacity, and this will lead to more harm for many children.

The hon. Member for East Thanet (Ms Billington) mentioned the importance of creative opportunities. I entirely agree that the arts are vital, but the Budget also hits opportunities for access to the creative arts. The Northamptonshire Music and Performing Arts Trust is a charitable organisation that offers children of all backgrounds access to lessons, but the increases in employers’ national insurance and the business property reliefs make it so much harder to offer those lessons. NMPAT is genuinely struggling. It would be devastating to lose such opportunity for our next generation. Regardless of politics, we must remember that it is our children’s education that is being penalised by these measures.