Pre budget blues

Money

With just an hour or so to go until the new coalition government announce their emergency budget, businesses in Rochdale are apprehensive of what to expect.

Rochdale Online reporter Laura Wild asked some business owners what they are expecting and if they are dreading the announcements.

Chris Nuttall of Rothwells said a couple of things will affect his business: “It is likely they will put employer and employee National Insurance up and also Capital Gains Tax.

“There is nothing we can do about it. Unfortunately whenever things go wrong they just tax more and more, and yet again that will happen this time.”

Mr Nuttall's business provides a variety of work wear products and equipment, he is concerned about the cuts to the public sector: “It’s a catch 22,” he said. “If they cut public spending the builders and construction companies that are busy carrying out public sector jobs, such as building schools for the future, will become less busy and that will come down the chain.

“At the moment the private sector hasn’t started to pick up so if they cut public sector spending they will just have a double whammy.”

Stuart Sawle of training organisiation Sysop said the cuts in public sector spending have already started to affect Sysop and what they do.

“We sell of a lot of training to the public sector and that will be affected under the axe. In truth it is happening already, we have already had a number of government departments cancel their orders and that is ahead of the budget,” said Mr Sawle.

With things already in the pipeline Mr Sawle doesn’t think today will make a massive difference, “I don’t think what is said today will have much as an affect because it is already happening.”

However, the budget doesn’t mean doom and gloom for all businesses, George Shepherd from Lancashire Wallpaper and Paint Co isn’t dreading the budget, when asked how he thought the budget would affect him he said: “Very little, I think as a business we are recession proof. People with less money are staying in more and they want to decorate.”

Mr Shepherd added: “If VAT goes up that will create an awful lot of hard work because we will have to change all the prices and we have thousands of items in stock.”

“Obviously people are tightening their belts but we haven’t seen the effects as yet, the business has had a nice steady growth since we began ten years ago. The recession hasn’t reflected in our figures,” Mr Shepherd concluded.