Richard Holden, MP for North West Durham, has today met with Simon Hanson of the Federation of Small Businesses North East.
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) is an organisation that represents small and medium businesses, as well as the self-employed, across the UK. It is led by its members and offers members benefits such as legal advice and government lobbying on their behalf. It also runs national campaigns on behalf of its members, highlighting the needs of small businesses, as well as the challenges they are facing. Simon Hanson is the North East Development Manager and is in charge of developing and growing the FSB across the North East, ensuring small businesses in the North East are represented on a national scale. He works on behalf of around 4000 small businesses.
Richard met with Simon at Maddison’s Eatery in Consett to discuss business and the economy in North West Durham and the wider North East. They discussed the recent budget and how this would affect businesses in the North – you can watch Richard speaking in the budget here. Richard had spoken with the FSB at length about what North West Durham businesses would like to see in the budget and relayed their comments to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Commenting, Richard said ‘It was great to have the chance to meet Simon and hear about the challenges that businesses in the constituency are currently facing, as well as recent achievements and good news from local companies. I will be working closely with him in the future as we look to hold SME business group meetings across the constituency and am very much looking forward to this. I am so glad that the Chancellor listened to North West Durham businesses about what they wanted to see in the budget. I want to thank Simon for taking the time to meet me and look forward to seeing him again in the near future’.
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