COMMENT “


Psst, pass it on...oh wait, maybe not


I


’m going to do something that I don’t very often do. Namely return to a topic I visited in my latest online blog. I’m doing this partly because I’m off on a last-minute holiday and, consequently, have an earlier deadline to hit, but mostly because it’s an issue that affects a great number of the companies in this industry. I’m talking, of course, about the body blow that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, struck the business community last October. The rise to employers’ National Insurance Contributions and the increase to the Minimum Wage and Living Wage hit everyone. Every business, in every sector, including merchants of all types, no matter who their ultimate owners are. Business Property Relief (see also: Agricultural Property Relief) allows a business to be handed on to the next generation free of some kind of inheritance tax. The tinkering with this for businesses worth more than £1m, affects those firms owned by individuals, not corporations. Mr and Mrs Buggins, whose family has been running Buggins Builders Merchants for years, decades, centuries, even, are those whose commitment to their business, their local economies, and their local workforce has been tossed aside by Ms Reeves, like a scrunched-up crisp packet. The idea may have been to catch the fat-cats, huge businesses who hide their wealth, passing it on to the next generation as a way of avoiding paying a reasonable, sensible amount of tax. Ditto the farmers who tie up their money in land, nominally handing it over to the next generation whilst never really getting their Barbours and Hunters dirty. If that was the idea, then, like those huge nets, over-fishing in and around our shores, it’s catching far smaller fish than it should do. I am, I know, preaching to the choir, but family firms are the lifeblood of this economy. Have


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been for centuries. When Napolean Bonaparte disparaged England by calling us a ‘nation of shopkeepers’ it wasn’t private-equity, pension companies or hedge funds who owned those shops. It was families, who opened up at the crack of dawn to serve customers, to take in deliveries, to close down at the end of the day, and then work out how many pounds, shillings and pence they could afford to reinvest, pay their workforce, their suppliers with. Sound familiar?


Family businesses in this industry (and others) contribute significantly to their local economies. They employ local people, giving them the wherewithal to live, thrive and, in turn, add significantly to the rest of the economy. Anything like the reduced BPR could force merchants to cut jobs to manage the increased tax burden. As it is, the changes to employers NIC has stopped plenty from taking on more staff or apprentices. Fact. The choices seem to be, try and squirrel away enough cash now to pay the tax should the business need to be handed down, transfer the business now, right now and hope the transferer lasts the requisite seven years, sell up completely, or simply take great care to ensure that the parents outlast the Labour government. In the meantime, use the organisations like the BMF, the NFU, your local MPs to keep the dialogue going with the government. To really try and make them see that penalising family firms – and farms – who employ local people, who are the backbone of UK business, who feed, not just the economy, but us, is going to seriously impact negatively that economic growth at Reeves is so keen for us to get. BMJ


Fiona Russell-Horne Group Managing Editor - BMJ


You don’t make the poor richer by making the rich poorer


Abraham Lincoln ”


CONTENTS 4 Newsround


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How to interview and what not to ask 10 People


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12 Business Helpdesk What’s concerning BMF Members


14 BMJ Industry Awards 2025 Finalists


The list of finalists for this year’s BMJ Industry Awards is set


16 Viewpoint


Our Guest columnists talk procurement and roofing


20 Merchant Focus Reinvention and rebranding


23 Heating and Plumbing Hot water and heat pumps


31 Rainwater Management Infrastructure for a changing climate


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The official opening of Pro Tiler Tools’ new HQ


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41 Landscaping Creating outside areas that last


46 BMF Industry Voice The latest from the Builders Merchants Federation


48 Product News What’s new from suppliers


50 And finally News and the Prize Crossword


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