‘Things will get much worse under Burnham’: Businesses in Makerfield give their verdict
Voters in Makerfield will cast their ballots this week in a by-election expected to herald the return of Manchester mayor Andy Burnham to Parliament and, potentially, succeed Sir Keir Starmer as PM.
With Burnham effectively campaigning to be both Makerfield’s MP and Prime Minister, he has tried to bring businesses on board with promises such as cuts in business rates for pubs and small family firms while also hinting he may review Rachel Reeves’ crippling increase in National Insurance Contributions.
But members of the local business community told The Mail on Sunday they have yet to be convinced.
Neil Evans, owner of the Ashton Lock and Key shop, noted reports that a Burnham government would keep Reeves as Chancellor despite her spending decisions, which many firms say have crippled their ability to invest and hire staff.
‘Makerfield is just a stepping stone for Burnham to get into No 10 and he’s keeping Reeves, so we’re screwed,’ said Evans bluntly.
Feeling the impact: Publican Paul Foster says NI changes have made it harder to hire staff
‘Labour don’t listen to businesses as they are all socialists.’
Steven Broadhurst, who runs a newsagent’s in Ashton, partly blamed Reeves’ National Insurance policy for the decline of traditional retailers.
He said: ‘The hike in NI at the same time as lowering the threshold has created a big burden paid by the business. It means owners cut staff and their costs rise. Labour don’t understand how to run a business.’
Broadhurst did not expect things to improve under a Burnham government.
‘Burnham has done nothing for round here as mayor. He’s tax, tax, tax, spend, spend, spend, borrow, borrow, borrow, so things could get much worse,’ he said.
Publican Paul Foster, who runs The Vineyard in Ashton and the Bird I’th Hand in nearby Hindley, said Labour’s decision to cut the threshold at which employers pay National Insurance Contributions from £9,100 to £5,000 a year plus increases in the National Minimum Wage had made it expensive to hire staff.
‘It means we are going to struggle to employ as many staff as we could have done – it means no profit and my girlfriend and I having to work more hours which we won’t get paid for,’ he said.
Foster highlighted that he only ran the pubs as ‘a hobby’ because the high cost of doing business meant there was ‘no way this will ever pay me a salary to live off’.
He was also critical of Burnham’s intervention on pubs, saying the Labour candidate had only decided to focus on them because he wanted to ‘get the attention’ of undecided voters.
Mark Cowley, owner of a furniture showroom and adjoining factory on the edge of Ashton, said a lack of Government support was stopping him from taking on apprentices, exacerbating a jobs crisis among British youngsters.
Impact: Steven Broadhurst, who runs a newsagent’s in Ashton, partly blamed Reeves’ National Insurance policy for the decline of traditional retailers
‘I want to teach someone to make beautiful furniture, but over successive governments, it’s become more difficult. Every government comes in and says they are going to give us money but we end up getting nothing,’ he said.
It is this scepticism that Labour’s main challenger in Makerfield, Reform UK, hopes to exploit with its own pledges, such as an overhaul of business rates, cutting corporation tax and raising the threshold at which firms must register for VAT from £90,000 of taxable turnover to £150,000, which leader Nigel Farage dubbed ‘a fair deal for white van man’.
But even the populism of Reform is struggling to turn the tide of cynicism. Evans pointed to the number of ex-Tory ministers who have joined Reform, such as Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman, saying the party is ‘basically the Conservative Party now and look what happened to them’.
Optimistic: Travel agent Ben Hughes pointed to Burnham’s record in Manchester
He added: ‘We need a businessman or businesswoman to be in charge and they need to be accountable.’
Foster said that a pledge by Reform to scrap the beer tie – under which pubs owned by big breweries are forced to buy beer from their parent company at above-market prices – wouldn’t have an impact as the brewers would just put the rent up instead.
There were pockets of optimism, with travel agent Ben Hughes pointing to Burnham’s record in Manchester, where annual economic growth has averaged 3.1 per cent in the past decade, twice that of Britain as a whole.
Hughes, whose company Go Ben Travel employs five full-time and three part-time staff at three branches, one in Ashton, said: ‘My partner is general manager of a hotel in Manchester and since Burnham has come in, the city has got a lot better. The figures speak for themselves. I think he would do a better job than Starmer, who hasn’t done what he promised.’
But he added that he was also open to Reform, saying: ‘I don’t believe all of its policies are bad.’
For Hughes, the biggest factor affecting his business is not who holds the keys to No 10 but what is happening to the global economy.
‘Our priority isn’t rates or National Insurance, it’s the Middle East war. Trips to the east and as far as Australia are being affected and some closed down,’ he said.
One owner of a small tyre garage in Ashton, who asked not to be named, said: ‘The general cost of living rise is hitting everybody particularly since the Iran war.’
‘People who only have £30 a week for their fuel are moving their cars around less to keep within their budgets and buying cheaper tyres. Our sales are down 20 per cent,’ they added.
None of the firms spoken to by The Mail on Sunday were willing to publicly support any candidate due to the febrile atmosphere.
But in terms of inspiration, many of Makerfield’s business owners encouraged the parties to look to the past. Despite the area’s mining history, Broadhurst said firmly of Mrs Thatcher: ‘I admire Maggie. You know where she stood and what she said, she did.’
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