​A budget that backs small business is a budget that backs Northern Ireland

It comes at a pivotal moment for Northern Ireland’s economy and for the thousands of small businesses that form its backbone.

The choices made next week will determine whether the Government intends to work with the small business community to drive jobs and growth - or whether it continues down a path that makes employing people riskier, more expensive, and less attractive.

Right now, small employers are being pushed to the brink. Ever-increasing regulation, litigation, and tax pressures are discouraging firms from taking on staff.

If we make it more costly and riskier to give someone a job, there will inevitably be fewer jobs. The consequences of that will echo across present and future generations, who will find the search for meaningful work increasingly difficult and painful.

We need a government that sides with the private sector, including the self-employed and those striking out on their own, not one that unintentionally sides against it. Ministers should base policy making on real world evidence, rather than on the well-meaning, but misguided assumptions of those far removed from the realities of running a business.

The upcoming Budget must therefore deliver a clear message that the Government backs jobs, backs ambition, and backs those who take risks to drive our economy forward. A pro-jobs, pro-self-employment, pro-business and pro-growth Budget is not a nice to have, it is essential.

A straightforward first step would be to uprate the Employment Allowance in line with the National Living Wage. This change would directly lower the cost of hiring and retaining staff at a time when wage bills are rising sharply. Restoring the sick pay rebate would also remove a major point of vulnerability for small employers who absorb the full cost when an employee is unwell.

At the same time, government must stop layering new burdens on top of already strained businesses. Ramping up jobs taxes, pushing through poorly designed employment legislation, and floating further increases in employer pension costs is the opposite of a growth plan. It erodes confidence, suppresses expansion, and ultimately increases the benefits bill as opportunities dry up.

This is a huge opportunity for the Government to make life easier for small firms. Expanding Small Business Rate Relief and using new powers to introduce permanently lower multipliers for small retail, hospitality and leisure businesses would immediately stimulate activity where it is most needed. We want to see measures such as improvements to the rates system echoed here by the NI Executive.

Another essential step is to lift the VAT threshold to £100,000. This would encourage greater levels of economic activity and help self-employed people grow without fear of punitive tax consequences.

Just as important is what the Government should not do. It must resist the temptation to target small businesses and the self-employed for tax increases. Small firms are not a limitless source of funding for policy ambitions. They cannot continue to be treated as if they have bottomless pockets.

Finally, the Northern Ireland Executive has a crucial role to play. In the past, when the UK Government acted positively to support small businesses, too often that support failed to reach firms here. Funds disappeared into a Stormont financial black hole rather than being delivered to the businesses they were intended to help. Budgets are tight, but the Executive must ensure that future support actually lands with the small businesses that sustain our communities.

We need to get the economy growing again. That starts with a Budget that recognises the central role of small businesses and gives them the tools, stability and confidence they need to succeed. Next week, the Chancellor has the chance to send that signal clearly. Northern Ireland’s entrepreneurs, employers and workers cannot afford for her to miss it.