THE biggest tax-raising budget in more than 30 years drew mix reaction from Cheshire residents, though it has left farmers and hospitality businesses feeling 'battered' and 'kicked in the teeth'.  

The heftiest tax grab since John Major’s government in 1993 sees the burden fall mainly on businesses, leaving working people’s pay packets relatively untouched.

In fact, chancellor Rachel Reeves' budget statement on Wednesday, October 30, confirmed minimum wage earners will actually see an increase of 6.7 per cent in the pay packets. 

For over 21s, this means a bump up from £11.44 an hour to £12.41, and for 18 to 20-year-olds, a rises from £8.60 to £10.

But with the costs falling on employers, combined with a tidy increase in employer national insurance contributions, business owners in Cheshire say this largesse is going to hit them pretty hard. 

Not only will the rate they pay for each employee rise by 1.2 per cent to 15 per cent, they now have to pay it on wages paid out more than £5,000 a year, where before the threshold was £9,100.

This will pull in lots more part-time staff, including many students and causal workers. 

Kris Perrin, who runs the Ring o’ Bells pub in Weaverham with his wife Katie, says this means £13,500 in extra cost a year for the family business.

He said: “Yesterday felt like yet another kick in the teeth for the hospitality and retail sector.

“With everything which has come from the budget, it will cost us an extra £13,500 per year running costs.

“I personally would imagine the breweries will see a massive influx of tenants handing the keys back over the next six months.”

Owners of family farms, who lose their cherished inheritance tax exemption, have also taken a body blow, and some believe this spells the end for passing their businesses on to their children.

From April 2026, they face a 20 per cent rate on assets worth more than £1 million.

With agricultural land in Cheshire valued between £10,000 and £15,000 an acre, a medium-sized farm of 200 acres will face death duties between £300,000 to £400,000. 

Tom Oulton, a dairy farmer and last year’s chairman of the Cheshire Federation of Young Farmers, says the budgets have left him feeling ‘battered’, adding it is family farms which will be hit worst of all.

Asked how many Cheshire farms are going to be pulled into inheritance under the new rules, Tom said: “Near enough all of them.

“This is going to be final nail in the coffin for many family businesses.

“When the older generation dies, the next is going to be hit with a massive tax bill. You’re talking hundreds of thousands of pounds, minimum.

“There just isn’t that kind of money in farming at the moment. People will have no choice but to sell up.

“And once they’re gone, they’re not coming back.

“And who’s going to buy land when they know they won’t be able to pass it on? Renewable energy companies? Who knows.

“We’ll be relying more an more on imports, which is terrible for food security.

“Family farms are the backbone of rural communities, and this really strikes at their roots.”

Councils, however, welcomed a sizable increase in the grant they receive from central government, which they say amounts to a 3.2 per cent increase in their spending power.

Cheshire East Council’s Labour group called the budget ‘a huge boost for businesses and families’.

It say nationally, this means £500 million to fix up to one million potholes, funding for 5,000 affordable homes, and £230 million to help tackle homelessness.

Louise Gittins, leader of Cheshire West and Chester Council and chairman of the LGA, said this was ‘a step in the right direction’ but warned councils still faced a ‘precarious’ future.

She added: “The government needs to give explicit clarity on whether councils will be protected from extra cost pressures from the increases to employer national insurance contributions.”

Member of parliament Mid Cheshire, Labour's Andrew Cooper, said: “We are choosing to protect working people and this means asking the wealthiest and businesses to pay their fair share to increase funding for public services, fixing our NHS and cutting hospital waiting lists.

“With this Budget, the Labour Government will avoid the huge falls in public sector investment planned by the previous Tory government and can start to fix the foundations of this country.

“We’ve under-invested as a nation for decades, particularly here in the North.

“This is a Budget which delivers change by fixing the NHS and rebuilding Britain, while ensuring working people don’t face higher taxes in their payslips.

“It is a Budget which invests in the country’s future so, alongside business, we can build the homes, the infrastructure, the roads and the railways we need.

The Budget has met with much criticism from Conservatives, including MP for Tatton, Esther McVey.

She said: “Make no mistake. The Budget will be catastrophic for the economic health of the country. 

"High taxes, high spending and massive debts for future generations to repay.

"This budget was anti-business, anti-aspiration, anti-wealth creator, and anti-worker. 

“And Rachel Reeves’s raid on the unfairest tax of all - inheritance tax - will double the number of estates which have to pay it, and disgracefully will virtually make it impossible for family farmers (definitely working people) to pass on their businesses to the next generation. 

"That will be disastrous for our rural areas and for our food security.

“At the last election, Rishi Sunak did warn people over and over again that Labour would hike up taxes despite their pretence otherwise.

"This very first budget did just that and has taken our country back to the 1970s with crippling levels of taxation, unsustainable levels of borrowing, and the trades unions in control.  

"It also broke virtually every economic promise Labour made at the recent general election.”