ALTON Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) believes the Spring Budget was “lacking verve” as far as business is concerned.

ACCI president Stephen Lewis said: “While it is good to hear that employment is at a record high, the Spring Budget was lacking verve as far as businesses were concerned. The inclusion of the National Insurance contribution increase for the self-employed was unhelpful, and the resulting U-turn to reverse this decision shows that our government is not in touch with the needs of smaller businesses.

“Businesses are the engine of the economy, yet successive governments have failed to recognise and encourage the large contribution made to the economy by smaller businesses. In fact, by far the largest number of businesses are so-called SMEs (micro, small and medium-sized enterprises) and of these, sole traders and single-person companies with no employees are the largest sector.

“It is, therefore, no surprise that the National Insurance increase was such a big issue and one that seems to have taken the government by surprise.”

On the thorny subject of business-rate relief and the decision by the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, to include £435m relief aid for those affected by the revaluation, Mr Lewis said: “Business rates are the bane of all businesses with premises, especially so for smaller businesses, and the recent revaluation of these rates is yet another unwelcome cost.

“While it is good that rate relief aid is being offered, I am not sure that this seemingly large sum will be enough to go around. Equally, it does put the onus upon the business owner to apply for rate relief aid, plus one has to bear in mind that this aid is only a short-term fix – the higher costs are presumably going to outlast the aid.”

On a more positive note, Mr Lewis flagged up the £200m included in the budget for broadband projects, which should benefit rural areas, and he applauded the £500m investment in technical education.

“At last (they are) recognising that we do need more college graduates who are qualified to do practical careers such as engineering and farming,” he said.

“This is not before time, as the conversion of many polytechnic collages into universities has taken the focus away from producing young adults who can progress into practical jobs with the relevant skills and experience.

“However, there is also £536m being offered for the new free schools. These have been widely condemned in the education sector and it is telling that the budget allowance is more than technical education which, I venture, is far more important for the country and businesses.

“The budget is offering £300m for academic placements and a further £270m for an Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, showing their recognition that the UK needs to be investing in a hi-tech, highly-skilled workforce and building new companies to innovate and compete in the global marketplace. This is perhaps the UK’s best way of trying to address our large trade deficit, but it will take some time before the benefits of this trickle down to the wider economy.”

The budget includes provisions for the National Productivity Investment Fund. This was established in the Autumn budget in 2016, promising an investment of £23bn over the following six years.

The fund covers housing, research and development, and economic infrastructure. In the Spring Budget, the allocation was just for transport, offering a stated £910m for two of the outlined areas, and an unstated sum on “supporting local projects”.

Mr Lewis added: “Impressive as this may sound, the UK’s transport infrastructure is still struggling to cope with the increase in population and increased journeys, and catching up from the years of underinvestment in roads and rail incurred in the last century. In any case, if you divide £23bn by six, it’s a lot more than £910m – it’s nearly £4bn a year.

“I do commend the building of Crossrail and the future High Speed 2 but there are many other transport-related issues that desperately need addressing all across the UK.”

He continued: “There are forecasts for a two per cent growth in the next few years, so it is essential that businesses are able to capitalise upon this. While employment is up, there is still an atmosphere of doubt over the economy, especially the plans to leave the EU. The budget seems rather bland when one considers the abyss that the government are heading the county into – we need to be aiming high in order to weather the storm. It is noticeable that only one of the areas in the budget has a price tag in the billions of pounds and this is not related to the economy.

“We are preparing to spend billions of pounds on leaving the EU, but only millions of pounds upon improving the economy. In governmental terms, millions of pounds are chump change and it is noticeable that this is often used to blind people to the overall lack of investment being offered.

“We are the second largest economy in Europe and the fifth in the world (by Gross Domestic Product) but, in my opinion, we are a long, long way from seeing the pavements paved with gold.”