{"id":151007,"date":"2025-11-20T23:55:20","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T23:55:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/151007\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T23:55:20","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T23:55:20","slug":"calls-to-slash-hairdressers-vat-amid-industry-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/151007\/","title":{"rendered":"Calls to slash hairdressers&#8217; VAT amid industry crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ian Palmer,in Tunbridge Wells and <\/p>\n<p>Stuart Maisner,South East<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1762856288_495_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 gUePlo hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1e48bfc0-c5fc-11f0-9c13-f920cfeeae8d.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"eager\" alt=\"Ian Palmer\/BBC A young woman in a hairdressing salon wearing gloves putting colour in the hair of a blond woman sat in a chair \" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA\"\/>Ian Palmer\/BBC<\/p>\n<p>Apprentice Nina Macias has worked in a Tunbridge Wells salon since 2023<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Hairdressers are calling on the government to rethink how VAT is applied to their sector in next week&#8217;s Budget as businesses say they are struggling to make a profit and find staff.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The British Hair Consortium (BHC), which represents 50,000 UK hairdressers, is calling on the government to halve the VAT salons pay on labour costs to 10%.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Nina Macias, an apprentice at The Chapel salon in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, says: &#8220;It&#8217;s crazy everywhere at the moment. I hear of salons closing and apprentices losing their jobs.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">A Treasury spokesperson said: &#8220;The Budget will build stronger foundations to secure Britain&#8217;s future, cutting waiting lists, cutting the national debt and cutting the cost of living.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Toby Dicker, co-founder of The Chapel said it was a &#8220;declining industry with the number of apprentices also declining&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1762856288_495_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 gUePlo hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/936e3870-c5fc-11f0-9c13-f920cfeeae8d.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Ian Palmer\/BBC A middle-aged man with glasses wearing a black suite, shirt and tie sat in a room \" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA\"\/>Ian Palmer\/BBC<\/p>\n<p>Salon owner Toby Dicker says he is working in a &#8220;declining industry&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Mr Dicker said: &#8220;If something isn&#8217;t done right now it could be the end of employment and apprenticeships in our industry.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;Britain has been at the forefront of the industry for decades.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;Hairdressing salons bring people together in the community and provide young people with a career path.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">A report, produced by BHC in February, called for the government to <a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c2kgj93nq8xo\" class=\"sc-f9178328-0 iCaRzc\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">provide urgent financial support<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Sree Kochugovindan, an economist, said: &#8220;In this year&#8217;s Budget what the government is trying to do is shift the tax burden away from small family businesses towards the bigger companies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;They are talking about making things easier for high street firms, including hairdressers, but it is difficult to balance the budget maths.&#8221; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ian Palmer,in Tunbridge Wells and Stuart Maisner,South East Ian Palmer\/BBC Apprentice Nina Macias has worked in a Tunbridge&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151008,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[72,113,61,60],"class_list":["post-151007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}