THE MP for Winchester has toured the city to speak to businesses about the Autumn Budget and its potential impact on the High Street.

Danny Chambers MP joined Winchester Business Improvement District executive director Paul Spencer to discuss the "aftermath" of the budget and how it will affect Winchester businesses.

They met on the High Street and toured a range of businesses expected to be impacted by the tax changes in Rachel Reeves’ budget.

Among those was the newly opened sandwich shop ‘Two Hands’, just one of many small businesses in Winchester now facing uncertainty over its expected costs over the coming years.

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Danny Chambers MP with Paul Spencer (Image: Contributed) Mr Chambers' team said: "Property rents are high in Winchester, so when the country is already facing a cost of living crisis, further expenses are going to create a real challenge, especially for new businesses trying to set up and cover their initial investment and borrowing costs. 

"It’s not just the employers’ National Insurance that’ll have an impact, but also the changes to business rates. While many of the smallest businesses will see rates come down, the 75 per cent discount for retail, hospitality, and leisure businesses will drop to 40 per cent."

Paul Spencer of Winchester BID said: “It feels like businesses have been hit hard by the budget. I think some of the biggest worries for Winchester will be higher employer national insurance contributions and the drop in the business rates discount for retail, leisure and hospitality. Some sectors will find it harder than others to pass on increasing costs to customers so they may need to make sacrifices, perhaps by delaying planned investment and keeping a close eye on staffing costs.

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“However, Winchester is resilient with a very low commercial property vacancy rate of just 3% compared to the national average of 14%, so I expect the city to continue to thrive.”

Danny Chambers MP added: “Public services have been hammered over the past 14 years. Across Hampshire that’s particularly affected our health services and schools. It’s completely right to find ways to boost funding and investment in these sectors to fix the damage the Conservatives have done, but the government didn't have to target small and medium sized businesses to do it.

“Let’s get the hugely profitable big banks, oil and gas industries and tech giants to pay their fair share.”