Graham is launching a Local Business Directory, enabling residents of Beverley and Holderness to support local businesses easily, should they so choose.
Businesses can express their interest in joining the directory at www.grahamstuart.com/LocalBusinesses. Businesses are encouraged to provide a photo and a couple of lines of text to allow potential customers to identify them.
Graham is making supporting local businesses one of his top priorities for 2025 as businesses face numerous challenges in the year to come.
Graham is deeply concerned that this is down to a lack of government support for small business, which face a hike in employer national insurance contributions, the increase of national minimum wage, a 47% reduction in business rates relief and an almost doubling of business rates relief.
Graham has been a vocal critic of the government’s approach to business, which he considers amounts to an own goal by targeting businesses which are still striving to recover to pre-Pandemic levels of revenue.
Labour has introduced a series of anti-business measures over the past few months, including increasing Employer National Insurance Contributions (NICs), the Jobs Tax, by 8.7% - which businesses tell Graham could result in them facing tough decisions when it comes to hiring.
This is coupled with a reduction for the threshold for Employer NICs from £9,000 to £5,000, which will make hiring part-time workers significantly more expensive for businesses.
Meanwhile, the government has made the decision to reduce business rates relief by 47% in 2025/26.
Graham Stuart, Member of Parliament for Beverley and Holderness, commented, "Businesses need our support – now more than ever.
“It’s clear that the government won’t help the business community – and that means we’ll all suffer.
“I want to do all I can to support those small businesses – whether that’s in Parliament, being a champion for Beverley and Holderness’s businesses locally and nationally and making it easier for people to find local businesses to support.”
