Support for businesses and working people welcomed by county council leader

Alan White

Support for small businesses, working people and measures to help people with day-to-day cost of living challenges set out in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement have been welcomed by the leader of Staffordshire County Council Alan White.

Alan White said:

We welcome measures outlined by the Chancellor which can help to put more money in people’s pockets to meet daily living cost challenges, with the working population standing to benefit from changes to both National Insurance contributions and an elevated living wage. This will make a difference to Staffordshire residents – where we have had long-term low unemployment and continue to generate numerous job vacancies. We’d again remind people to check our recently launched Staffordshire Jobs and Careers Service – matching their skills and experience to new employment or training.

Measures to enable businesses to increase productivity, with incentives to invest in their operations, leads to national and local economic growth and more employment opportunities. This is good news for Staffordshire where we’re set to see more activity on our key development sites such as i54 in the coming months. We want to take advantage of further investment in clean energy industries – particularly the hydrogen technology sector which will be the focus of development along the A50/A500 corridor in future years.

And ongoing measures to support small businesses and the self-employed are particularly welcome here in Staffordshire where survival rate for start-ups is higher than the national average, and where we as a county council have established a hugely successful support programme for new and growing companies.”