Category Archives: Small Business

‘Unfair banking’ and ‘damaging’ financial rules harming UK’s small firms, MPs warn

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Treasury committee says ‘debanking’ and use of personal guarantees for loans is putting small businesses at risk

Unfair banking practices and “damaging” financial regulators are harming small businesses and putting innovation and growth at risk, parliament’s Treasury committee has warned.

A report from the committee’s inquiry into access to finance for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) said a lack of supportive policies were compounding problems for firms that had survived a “torrid” five years, which included the global pandemic and energy crisis.

“Confidence amongst SMEs in accessing finance has fallen and acceptance rates for business credit has lowered significantly,” the report said.

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Tesco accused of undercutting local shops via its wholesale business

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Independent shopkeepers say prices they pay at supermarket’s cash-and-carry arm Booker are often higher than in Tesco stores

Village shopkeepers say Tesco is consistently undercutting them by selling products for less in its stores than via its wholesale business Booker, stoking concerns about the power of the UK’s biggest supermarket chain.

Tesco, which has 27% of the UK grocery market, bought the cash-and-carry group in 2017 for £3.7bn, promising that the deal would benefit shoppers and independent retailers.

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‘Our profits could disappear’: Small UK businesses hit out at new import fees

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Post-Brexit charges of up to £145 may lead to a reduced range of goods available for consumers

British small businesses have hit out at newly announced post-Brexit import fees coming in later this month, warning they could wipe out profits and make importing some products unfeasible.

Trade bodies, retailers and small firms said that the new charges of up to £145 for each consignment could force them to limit the range of items they can offer, while others may have to push up their prices.

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Legal action launched against ‘rip-off’ secret commissions on UK firms’ energy bills

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Thousands of small businesses sue for return of brokers’ fees that often go undisclosed in billing

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Businesses across the UK have been forced to pay an extra 10% on average for their gas and electricity because suppliers routinely add third-party broker commissions to their bills, according to a leading litigation law firm.

Thousands of small businesses have joined a group legal action, led by the law firm Harcus Parker, to claw back up to £2bn in undisclosed broker fees added to their energy bills.

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Small firms fear going bust as Amazon extends wait time for sale proceeds

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Marketplace sellers in UK and rest of Europe say having to wait over a week means they will struggle to pay staff and loans

Amazon has told thousands of marketplace sellers in the UK and continental Europe it will hold on to sale proceeds for more than a week in a move that small businesses say could force them to go bust.

The company has written to sellers to inform them it will no longer credit their accounts as soon as a sale is made online but will do so a week after an item has been delivered.

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‘One step at a time’: entrepreneur buys stairwell in London to help startups

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Simon Squibb plans to provide small businesses with rent-free space after bidding £25,000 for disused stairs

An entrepreneur who woke up homeless in a stairwell at the age of 15 with his first business idea has spent £25,000 on a disused stairwell to provide a rent-free space in London for small businesses to fulfil their dreams.

Simon Squibb, who retired at 40 after selling Fluid, his marketing agency, to PricewaterhouseCoopers, hopes the stairwell in Twickenham, south-west London, will provide a showcase for owners of small businesses.

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Rise in UK breweries going bust amid thirst for cheaper craft beers

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45 breweries, mostly smaller makers, enter insolvency in last 12 months, up from 15 the previous year

The number of UK breweries going out of business has tripled in the past year, with smaller craft beer manufacturers most at risk as consumers opt for cheaper options during the cost of living crisis, according to research.

In total, 45 breweries entered insolvency in the 12 months ending 31 March, compared with 15 in the previous year, according to the most recent official Insolvency Service statistics analysed by Mazars, an audit, tax and advisory firm.

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‘Shops will close’: soaring cost of potatoes batters British chippies

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The once humble, low-cost staple more than doubles in price, putting many fish and chip shops at risk

Whether it’s fried, baked or mashed, potatoes have traditionally been a low-cost staple food in the UK – but not any more.

A surge in costs is clobbering high street chippies, while in the supermarket, oven chips and the once humble baking potato are casualties of soaring grocery prices.

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Loss of nearly 15,000 UK retail jobs a ‘brutal start to 2023’, report says

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Majority of job losses are at large retailers such as Tesco and Asda, according to Centre for Retail Research

Nearly 15,000 British retail jobs have already been cut since January in a “brutal start to the year” for the high street.

A total of 14,874 retail job losses have been announced by companies so far, according to analysis from the Centre for Retail Research (CRR).

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Refuse firm Lord of the Bins ordered to change its name by Tolkien franchise

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Two-man business contacted by lawyers of Middle-earth Enterprises, which owns rights to Lord of the Rings

A refuse firm in Brighton called Lord of the Bins has been ordered by lawyers to change its name after being accused of breaching trademark laws.

The two-man waste collection business was contacted by Middle-earth Enterprises, which owns the worldwide rights to The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

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Florida’s ‘don’t say gay’ bill author indicted for money laundering

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Federal grand jury also charged Republican lawmaker Joe Harding with ‘fraudulently obtaining’ $150,000 in Covid relief funds

A federal grand jury has indicted Florida state representative Joe Harding, the Republican lawmaker who authored the “don’t say gay” bill, for Covid business relief fraud and money laundering, the justice department announced on Wednesday.

Between December 2020 and March 2021, Harding, 35, committed wire fraud when he took part in a “scheme to defraud” the Small Business Administration and obtained Covid-related relief funds for small businesses under false pretenses, according to a federal indictment.

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Cooking oil price surges hurt Australian takeaway outlets including fish and chips

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Covid-induced inflation, drought in Canada and global instability are putting the squeeze on key ingredients of a national staple

Takeaway businesses are feeling the pinch as prices surge for cooking oil and potatoes – two key ingredients of an Australian staple: fish and chips.

Justin Quinton, the owner of Saltmine Fish and Chips in the New South Wales Hunter region, told Guardian Australia his Salamander Bay eatery previously used a blend of cottonseed, canola and sunflower oil.

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Covid fraud: how bounce back loans paid for cars, watches and even porn

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As details emerge, concerns grow about Treasury’s efforts to recover almost £5bn wrongly claimed

When Keith Hamblett, a fruit and vegetable seller from Tyne and Wear, asked his bank for a government-backed loan in the autumn of 2020, the economy was still in trouble after lockdowns, and coronavirus cases were rising.

The Covid bounce back loan scheme was a welcome relief for many smaller companies, and Hamblett received £28,000.

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Most small firms fear long-term fallout from UK’s cost of living crisis

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Half worry rocketing prices will cut spending, while three in four fear long-term damage to businesses

Three-quarters of small and medium-sized companies are worried about the long-term impact the cost of living crisis, soaring energy bills and rising inflation will have on their business, a survey has found.

Just over half (51%) of SMEs said they were concerned that rocketing prices would dent consumer spending, in response to Barclays’ SME Barometer, a quarterly survey of business sentiment conducted for the bank.

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Van drivers in UK will need new operating licences to enter EU from May

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Latest Brexit red tape will come into force alongside a series of further checks at Dover and other ports

Van drivers will be required to get new international operating licences if they want to travel back and forth to the EU from May next year, the government has announced.

The additional red tape will come into force next year alongside a series of further checks at Dover and other ports that were delayed three times in 2021 because of lack of preparation for Brexit in Great Britain.

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Dutch to investigate business trio’s €100m face mask deal

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Scrutiny of government procedures after ‘not-for-profit’ PPE contract led to ‘€20m enrichment’

The Dutch government has promised an independent investigation into a supposedly not-for-profit €100m (£86m) deal to buy face masks from China last year that ended up making three young entrepreneurs about €20m richer.

The investigative website Follow the Money (FTM) revealed that Sywert van Lienden, 30, a former civil servant turned TV pundit and activist, who co-wrote the manifesto of the Christian Democrat (CDA) party (part of the ruling coalition), netted €9.2m.

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Rishi Sunak to offer ‘help to grow’ training for SME managers

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Small businesses will receive help in Wednesday’s budget to boost tech and management skills

The bosses of small businesses are to be invited back to school to brush up on their management skills, under plans to be announced in the budget designed to help close Britain’s productivity gap with rival nations.

As part of the attempt to speed up the UK’s recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, will unveil a “help to grow” scheme that will offer the leaders of up to 130,000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) the chance of MBA-style management training.

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Yorkshire lobster exporter says Brexit costs have forced it to close

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Government has not been straight with fishing industry, says Sam Baron of Baron Shellfish in Bridlington

A lobster exporter who is winding up his 60-year-old family business has blamed the government for failing to be honest about Brexit red tape and hidden costs.

Sam Baron, who worked alongside his father to set up Baron Shellfish in Bridlington, east Yorkshire, said the government had failed to be straight with the fishing industry.

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‘A Brexit nightmare’: the British businesses being pushed to breaking point

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Less than a month after leaving the EU, trade is flowing so badly that small firms are moving operations abroad to survive

Christophe Fricke lectures in German at the University of Bristol and adores living in England. He was born in Germany but his anglophilia became so strong after moving here that he wrote a book called 111 Gründe, England zu lieben (“111 Reasons to Love England”) in 2018. He selected the gardens of Cornwall, the National Portrait Gallery, the way the English use collective nouns for groups of animals (herds, packs, and so on) and their fascination with murder cases in his varied list of reasons for loving this country.

But since 1 January, Fricke has been reminded that there are also worrying things about life in England – and being outside the EU is now chief among them.

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Shock Brexit charges are hurting us, say small British businesses

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Levies to cover the increase in red tape, VAT and customs declarations are hitting trade to the European Union

Government ministers describe the post-Brexit headaches that British exporters have suffered since 1 January as mere “teething problems”. But Alex Paul, who jointly runs a successful family business that features in the Department for International Trade’s list of national “export champions”, disagrees. And he wants the real story to be told.

Two weeks into the supposed golden era of global Britain, Paul and many other British entrepreneurs, large and small, are running into very serious problems.

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