If a new wave of government assistance is not released immediately, some 500,000 small businesses in the UK will go bankrupt within weeks, the chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) Martin McTague has warned.
“We don’t have any problem with the way the chancellor dealt with consumer needs,” McTague told BBC Radio 4’s Today program earlier this week, commenting on the latest £15 billion ($19 billion) cost-of-living package released by the UK government.
“But there is still a massive problem with small businesses,” he said.
“They are facing something like twice the rate of inflation for their production prices, and it’s a ticking timebomb. They have got literally weeks left before they run out of cash and that will mean hundreds of thousands of businesses, and lots of people losing their jobs.”
McTague also cited the latest figures revealed by the Office for National Statistics, which showed that 40%, or two million, of UK small businesses had less than three months’ worth of cash left to run operations.