Mike Daisley of Wildfowler, Terrington St Clement and Mandy Bahar of The Daily Grind, King's Lynn discuss UK Government's Autumn Statement

West Norfolk businesses are already feeling the effect of price hikes announced in last week’s Autumn Statement.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced a raft of changes to taxes, energy price caps and minimum wages last Thursday.

Businesses were also affected by a stealth freeze of the threshold at which they pay VAT, while a personal allowance freeze at £12,510 was also made.

Mike Daisley, who runs the Wildfowler pub in Terrington St Clement with his wife Lisa, says his electricity bills will go from around £1,600 to £3,500 due to the changes.

He has already heard rumours than one pub in West Norfolk is set to close within three weeks, and believes the Government should have outlined more support for businesses in its Statement.

“It doesn’t feel like, at the moment, we’ve had any help whatsoever,” Mr Daisley said.

“We are a busy pub, and we already know that within the next six months we are going to lose money, regardless of how busy we are.

“It’s sad to say, but if we locked the doors and just paid the rent and lease, we would probably be about as well off.

“From a business owner’s point of view, all I’m doing is keeping people in jobs to break even.”

Mr Daisley added that, come April, eight-hour shifts could cost around £300 extra per day if six members of staff are working due to wage hikes.

From April, the national living wage is set to rise by 92p to £10.42 an hour for over-23s.

Peter Lawrence, director of Lynn-based Human Capital Department, has also expressed concerns with minimum wage increases.

He believes there are two main issues for small and medium-sized businesses - whether or not they can afford to absorb the increase in costs, and whether more experienced and skilled workers will expect pay rises of their own.

Mr Lawrence said: “An increase to £10 per hour would seem more reasonable and in line with wage inflation.

“Pay restraint in the National Minimum Wage might be difficult medicine to swallow and against the advice of the Low Pay Commission but without restraint, small businesses will have to review their current headcount at this time of falling demand and may decide either not to recruit additional people or be forced to take difficult decisions around reducing staff and making redundancies.”

Mandy Bahar, who owns The Daily Grind café on London Road in Lynn, believes she will be mostly unaffected by Mr Hunt’s plans due to using the Pricewatch database and falling below the VAT threshold.

However, she admits her customers could be affected.

“I think it’s definitely taken people’s fun money,” she said.

“I shall manage quite well and get through it, but it’s stopped me going out.

“It doesn’t help that you’ve got big companies doing endless ‘coffee for pensioners’. We can’t all afford to do that.

“I think that I shall probably be okay, but obviously you can’t be sure and you have to do the best that you can.

“That’s just my hope. I will stay here until the bitter end - this is where I want to end my working days.”