Businesses have had to cope with pretty big challenges in recent years, Brexit is still costing them billions and they are still recovering the losses made in the pandemic. What they need is some stability to plan and invest against. The announcements and then the reversals, by the government over the past month have just added to their real sense of uncertainty.

As a leading international visitor destination, the reinstating of the tax free shopping scheme was welcomed here, this will now not happen making us less attractive to visit than other countries. The halting of the planned hike in corporation tax from 19-25% a 30 percent rise, was also welcomed since it would allow businesses to invest more of their profits in people, training, equipment and working on important topics like net zero and sustainability. This is now reversed, so this large tax increase will now start from April 2023. Many small business owners pay themselves with dividends from these profits, not only will there less cash to distribute, the cancellation of the planned change in taxes on this is a further blow.

The cancelling of planned freezes in various alcohol duties will hit the already fragile hospitality and nighttime economy sectors.

Add to this the continuing knocks to consumer confidence then the outlook over the next few months is tough, if the promised support for consumers and businesses on energy bills does not continue beyond April then a spring clean could be seen on high streets with some businesses closing up shop for good.

The frustrating thing is that many of these tax giveaways were not asked for, but once promised a month ago and then baked in by a business to their plans the undoing is the painful and damaging bit.

Business groups including British BIDs are calling for more targeted support from government, this includes a reduction in VAT from 20% to 12.5% and a reduction in the vat on business energy bills down to 5% the same as consumers pay.