The increase in business costs can be traced back to serial ‘fibber’ Boris Johnson when in the post covid shambles he outlined his vision for a high wage low tax economy.

Like most things he said it turned out to be disingenuous.   Thanks to the increases in the National Living Wage, incomes did increase but so did the tax burden on businesses meaning that it was the commercial world, the sector that governments of all persuasions rely on to create wealth that footed the bill(s).

So called ‘Awful April’ will not only see another imposed NLW burden – which is a cost to us not to the UK Government – but also the NI increases which hit businesses in a different way with no benefit or knock-on impact to the employer or consumer but just an additional cost to the business world which in our sector comes off the bottom line. At least with the NLW there is an argument that retailers can benefit from having more money flowing through the population

The NLW burden for businesses such as Game Nation has an inflationary impact as staff understandably want to maintain wage differentials.

Our projections are that employment and NI costs will take a seven figure sum off our bottom line. This could not have come at a worse time with the impact of the global tariffs and the ongoing Ukraine war likely to dent consumer confidence.

This Government is proving worse than the last – and that’s saying something. Of the 411 Labour MPs elected to Parliament in 2024 I doubt whether a handful have any experience of running let alone owning a business. Our sector is one of the very few that’s investing in the high street and this latest burden on an industry which cannot raise its prices will at the very least put a hand brake on that investment.”