The displays may be colourful but the pre-Budget mood is bleak at a garden centre in Chancellor John Healey’s Yorkshire constituency.
Tony Airey, who has run Wentworth Garden Centre with his family for 40 years, should be looking forward to the busy festive period.
Last Christmas, however, they had to cut staff rather than hire extra workers after rises in National Insurance contributions and the national minimum wage.
Airey worries any further minimum wage rises would be ‘unsustainable’.
Then there’s Angela Rayner’s ‘horrendous’ Workers’ Rights Bill bringing in the right to sick pay from the first day of illness regardless of hours worked.
‘These mitigate against
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