Every day should be Small Business Saturday – MP column

THE Fox family has been here how long? I asked, standing inside Derek Fox Butchers in Malton last Saturday morning.

“For a long time… since 1855,” the lady replied, wrapping up a cracking piece of lamb destined for my Sunday lunch.

Some 170 years, several generations of one family, serving the same community. Sourcing their produce from the market just a few hundred yards away. If you want to understand what Small Business Saturday really means, stand in that shop and feel the weight of that history.

Small Business Saturday isn’t just a marketing campaign. It celebrates the UK’s 5.45 million small businesses and encourages us all to spend and shop small. Yes, it falls on the first Saturday in December, but it represents something bigger. A year-round commitment to the businesses that give our communities their character and our economy its backbone.

But last Saturday felt different. As I moved between businesses in Malton urging people to support their local traders, the sense of unease was notable. The conversations I had weren’t about expansion plans or optimism. They were about survival. Business owners are facing a ‘perfect storm’ and it’s one of this Government’s making.

I didn’t go into politics from a think tank or a university common room. I started my own business, Hunters estate agents, in York in 1992 and ran it for three decades. The difference between then and now? Back then, the government was not actively working against us.

The numbers tell a brutal story. Labour has hiked Employer National Insurance from 13.8 per cent to 15 per cent while slashing the threshold from £9,100 to £5,000. This is not simply tinkering at the edges. It’s a £25 billion annual raid on businesses already operating on razor-thin margins.

For the village shop in Hovingham, for the cafe in Kirkbymoorside, for the independent bookstore in Pickering, this is catastrophic. Take a small business employing just four people on the National Living Wage. They’re now looking at thousands of pounds in additional costs every year. That’s not money they’re hoarding. It’s money that would have gone into a fresh coat of paint, a fifth employee, better wages for existing staff. Instead, it’s disappearing into the Treasury’s coffers while Labour lectures us about growth.

Then there is the Employment Rights Bill, a piece of legislation that reads like it was written by people who’ve never had to make a payroll. Yes, the Government backed down from its most extreme proposal of day-one unfair dismissal rights. Congratulations, they’ve decided not to make hiring completely impossible. Instead, they’ve merely made it significantly more difficult and expensive.

The unfair dismissal threshold is dropping from two years to six months. From April 2026, businesses will face day-one statutory sick pay with no lower-earnings threshold, day-one parental leave and oversight from a new enforcement body called the Fair Work Agency. If you’re running a small family business and considering taking someone on, you’re now looking at a minefield of regulation and a dramatically shortened window to assess whether they’re right for the role.

This matters because small businesses aren’t just statistics in a spreadsheet. They’re the engine of our economy. They’re the ones who sponsor the local football team, who donate to the village fete, who give teenagers their first job. When you make it harder for them to hire, you’re not just affecting one business. You’re affecting every young person looking for their start, every family relying on that income, every community that depends on these businesses staying open.

The Conservative vision is straightforward. Cut business rates for 250,000 retail, hospitality and leisure businesses. Cut the red tape that strangles innovation. Create an environment where hard work and risk-taking are rewarded, not punished. Let business owners focus on serving customers, not navigating bureaucracy.

Because here’s what the Government seems to forget: you cannot fund the NHS, schools or local services without a thriving private sector generating the tax revenue to pay for them. Every pound taken from a small business in Malton is a pound that can’t be invested in growth. Every new regulation that prevents a café owner from hiring is a young person who stays unemployed. The maths isn’t complicated.

Last year, 10 million people spent £634 million on Small Business Saturday alone. That’s not charity. That’s recognition that when you buy local, the money circulates through your community. It pays for children’s swimming lessons, supports other local suppliers, keeps our town centres alive.

If you missed last Saturday, you haven’t missed your chance. Every day is an opportunity to back the businesses that make York and North Yorkshire what it is. Buy your Christmas presents in Helmsley. Grab your morning coffee in Filey. Get your Sunday roast from Malton. These aren’t just transactions. They’re investments in the kind of communities we want to live in.

York and North Yorkshire is open for business. The question is whether Westminster will finally get out of the way and let businesses get on with what they do best.