December and the Christmas period is a vitally important time for retailers and our hospitality and leisure sectors. This period can be the difference between a business surviving or not. Sadly, all is not well in these sectors and if you see somewhere very busy, please don’t assume they are making a fortune, because in many cases they won’t be at all. Please do support our local businesses in Crawley this Christmas time.
The costs and pressures on these sectors that had already been hit with high energy prices, have continued to worsen. This is as a direct result of policy decisions taken by the Labour Government. We have now had two disastrous annual budgets that have disproportionately impacted small businesses in retail, hospitality and leisure in particular.
The hiking of employer national insurance contributions was bad enough but significantly lowering the level at which it is paid, hit these sectors especially hard. For the average pub with eight employees, the National Insurance Jobs Tax is adding an additional £7,200 of tax to the wage bill.
High government borrowing and spending has been keeping inflation higher for longer, which not only increases costs, it affects affordability for customers. Additionally, the so-called Employment Rights Bill is going to further hike costs for these firms and is likely to lead to less employment.
Added to these pressures, Labour have now hiked up business rates for the second year in a row. Last year they slashed back Retail, Hospitality and Leisure rate relief (originally introduced by the Conservatives) from 75% to 40%. This year they’ve announced further changes to the way business rates work with a business rate revaluation. As a result, in 2026-27, the OBR have said that business rate receipts are rising by 10% this year, even with transitional relief, with pubs and hotels being especially hammered.
Only the Conservatives have a plan to help local businesses by cutting business rates for 250,000 retail, hospitality and leisure businesses, who would benefit from 100% business relief. This relief would be capped at £110,000 per business, the same threshold as previous relief schemes.
Councillor Duncan Crow, Leader of Crawley Borough Council Conservative Group
10th December 2025
