{"id":53842,"date":"2025-04-27T04:22:10","date_gmt":"2025-04-27T04:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/53842\/"},"modified":"2025-04-27T04:22:10","modified_gmt":"2025-04-27T04:22:10","slug":"joe-lycett-urges-support-for-small-businesses-they-really-need-it-right-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/53842\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Lycett urges support for small businesses – ‘They really need it right now’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The comedian called it ‘a scary time’ and predicted many independents will close in the coming months\"JoeJoe Lycett predicts many businesses will close in the coming months and urged people to show support(Image: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Comedian Joe Lycett urged people to support local and predicted many independent businesses will close because of the national insurance rise.<\/p>\n

On April 1, the rate of national insurance contributions rose from 13.8% to 15%, meaning businesses have to pay more in NICs for any employee earning over \u00a35,000.<\/p>\n

Birmingham has lost a number of independent businesses over the past six months, including Poli<\/a>, located in Joe’s home of Kings Heath<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Read More:<\/strong> Legendary Birmingham family describes ‘surreal’ moment after Dubai success<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Speaking to BirminghamLive, Joe said: “Unfortunately, and it’s not unique to Birmingham<\/a>, there’s going to be a lot of places which close in the next few months because of the rise.<\/p>\n

“It’s a really difficult time for a lot of small businesses.<\/p>\n

\"ItalianItalian restaurant Poli said last year it could no longer survive in the ‘current economic climate.'(Image: Birmingham Mail)<\/p>\n

“If there’s somewhere in your area that you love, you’ve got to keep using it and going there.<\/p>\n

“Without doing that, it disappears. It seems obvious to say but it’s really important.<\/p>\n

“It’s hard for everyone at the minute but if you have that bit of disposable income to support local businesses, do it.<\/p>\n

“They really need it right now and it’s a scary time.”<\/p>\n

Labour’s decision to introduce the national insurance rise has come under scrutiny from a number of Birmingham businesses.<\/p>\n

Harrington’s Gourmet Sandwiches predicted this month would be ‘Armageddon<\/a>‘ for the hospitality industry.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, Hennessey’s Bar owner Gary McDonnell slammed the rise and said it will “kill pubs”.<\/p>\n

The Wellington landlord Nigel Barker revealed the real-ale pub would increase prices and declared the change as “a really poor decision<\/a> from the Labour government.”<\/p>\n

Joe was speaking to BirminghamLive ahead of his new show, United States of Birmingham, which is available to watch on Sky Max and NOW.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The comedian called it ‘a scary time’ and predicted many independents will close in the coming monthsJoe Lycett…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,748,393,4884,23383,16821,528,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-53842","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-joe-lycett","13":"tag-kings-heath-and-stirchley","14":"tag-labour-party","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114408020094577615","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}