More than three quarters of Yorkshire’s small firms support deficit reduction, survey finds

22 June 2010

Email article : Print article : More articles like this

More than three quarters of smaller businesses in Yorkshire support rapid moves to pay off the national debt, new research has found.

In a survey carried out by the Forum of Private Business, 76% of the region's small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) said reducing the deficit should be one of the new Government's main priorities.

By comparison, only 38% said that introducing fairer taxes should be a priority and just 21% called for public procurement to be made more accessible.

Stronger regulation of the banks and utility companies emerged as the second most popular choice, finding favour with 67% of business owners polled in the Yorkshire and Humber region. Meanwhile, tax simplification was the third most popular priority for the new Government, on 64%.

Forum spokesman Phil McCabe said: "It's clear that small business owners across Yorkshire are well aware of the need to tackle the UK's record public debt and are behind the new Government's efforts to do so.

"The region's smaller firms will undoubtedly suffer some pain from big spending cuts like everyone else. However, business owners understand the importance of fiscal responsibility and appreciate that you can't carry on living beyond your means.

"The important thing for small businesses is that crucial support services, like HMRC's Time to Pay tax deferral scheme, aren't sacrificed in the drive to cut costs. SMEs, in Yorkshire and elsewhere, will be crucial to Britain's economic recovery and it's essential that they are allowed to grow and create jobs and prosperity."

Mr McCabe added: "Business owners in Yorkshire also seem particularly keen to see the regulators crack down on risky banking practices. This perhaps indicates that the region's SMEs have suffered particular problems in accessing affordable finance from the major lenders since the credit crunch.

"Hopefully, with a new regulatory system soon to be in place, these problems will soon start to ease."

Meanwhile, when asked how business support could be improved locally, reducing local taxation emerged as the most popular choice among small firms in Yorkshire, finding favour with 69% of those surveyed. The next most popular choice for business owners in the region was addressing parking and transport issues – 38% of respondents to the Forum's survey listed this as a problem.

The third biggest concern for Yorkshire firms was local business support services, on 36%.

The figures emerged through the Forum's quarterly Referendum ballot, which was sent out to its members just before the general election. The survey also asked owners of small firms which political party they felt best understood their businesses.

As elsewhere, the Conservative Party was the most popular choice among small business owners in Yorkshire, attracting the backing of 70% of respondents. Labour emerged as the second most popular choice, finding favour with 5% of those surveyed, while the Liberal Democrats were in third, on 3% Surprisingly, fewer than 1% of Forum members in Yorkshire said UKIP best understood their needs – this compares to a national figure of over 7%.

Encouragingly, only 20% of small business owners in Yorkshire said they felt no political parties at all understood their businesses. This figure was as high as 38% in other regions of the UK.

Email:
eNewsletter archive