NFRN president Colin Finch said: “We are once again disappointed by a Budget that does not dare to go far enough with helping micro, small and medium businesses in the UK and a lot of taxation that is hidden behind sound-bites about tax cuts.
“A positive step of this budget at least was the mention of plastic bags.
“The NFRN and its members are committed to a better quality of life for the local communities which they serve. Therefore we are already encouraging our customers to recycle their bags or use ‘bags for life’ and will continue to have a sensitive outlook to environmental issues.
“We are ready to find new ways to recycle and encourage our customers to be more responsible with their plastic bags usage even though are members are not mass users of plastic bags in the same way that supermarkets are.
“We are naturally heartened by talk of tax simplification and small firms’ loans but we are afraid that we have been hearing promises of action ‘some time in the future’ for years.
“Our sector is a central part of the UK economy yet we pay disproportionate taxes and are burdened by red tape. We are eager to see some real change that will allow all small retailers and business people to get on with what they are good at instead of trying to figure out tax rules and complicated regulation.”
