Derry blinds firm hopes it’s not curtains for SMEs in UK budget

Ever had one of those days where you just feel like pulling down the blinds on life for a while? Next time you do, Cormac Diamond would like to hear from you because, regardless of your mood, he is confident he can change your outlook on life.

Diamond is the managing director of Co Derry firm Bloc Blinds, which has built up markets and jobs for its Magherafelt facility across Europe and the United States.

But Diamond is worried that the UK chancellor, Philip Hammond, could cast a shadow over his business plans for 2017 with measures in his budget announcement on Wednesday.

Bloc Blinds is halfway through a £4 million (€4.6 million) expansion programme that began before the UK’s vote to exit the European Union (which accounts for about 40 per cent of its sales).

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Diamond, like many small-business owners, hopes Hammond will be mindful that many of them may be trying to prepare for the impact of Brexit “without much clarity”.

Flexibility

“What we need from the chancellor is some flexibility to prepare for the future,” Diamond says. “Everyone is worried about the potential costs of Brexit, particularly SMEs which are trying to keep more cash within their businesses to buy them adaptability in the future. To do that they need to keep costs tightly under control.

“If the chancellor increases the burden to businesses through taxes or other measures that could hurt our competitiveness, it is going to cost us money that we desperately need to hold on to prepare for what may or may not happen following Brexit,” he says.

The other key issue for businesses in Northern Ireland, according to Diamond, is rates – the property tax that all shops, offices, pubs, warehouses and factories must pay.

Although Bloc Blinds has a major online operation, it is also expanding the retail side of the business in response to customer demand to “see and feel” the product before they buy. Diamond believes the current level of rates is dissuading businesses from investing in retail outlets that could help revitalise town centres across Northern Ireland.

Expansion

Diamond believes Hammond also needs to make it easier for firms to grow and expand, even if they are unsure about what the immediate future could hold for them.

“We need to be able to plan as much as we can at the moment. We don’t need to be squeezed with more cost burdens in the spring budget,” Diamond says. “In our case we are hoping to create more jobs and we are still on track to do that but, because of Brexit, we might have to take other decision such as focusing on certain markets over others, or the logistics of how we will deliver our products in the future, and all of this needs money. So we don’t need the chancellor to take any more away from us.”

Hammond has already warned there are no pots of hidden money to make it a giveaway budget this time around. That means he is unlikely to be inclined to award any new tax breaks: the amount that people can earn without paying tax is already scheduled to rise in 2017-2018 by £500 to £11,500.

How generous Hammond might be to the North, while it is gripped by its latest political crisis, is also a key concern for local firms – particularly those who might benefit from increased in infrastructure budgets.

Business consultants PwC have warned that an “inability to form a new Executive” would also impact on the North’s agreed budget, the draft programme for government and the planned introduction of a lower rate of corporation tax in 2018.