Salon Owners Ask for a VAT Cut
More than 2,000 salon owners, among them Marcus Perkins, have signed an open letter asking Chancellor John Healey to cut VAT on hair and beauty services from 20% to 10% in this week's Budget.
Perkins says rising costs are making it harder for businesses to employ staff and invest in apprenticeships, and that more salons are turning to self-employed models to survive.
A Future of Hairdressing report found that 53% of salon owners reported reducing the number they trained, with financial pressures and concerns about inconsistent training standards cited as causes. A VAT cut may ease the cost pressure; reversing the training decline is a separate problem.
AI-generated discussion · Different perspectives
The 53% figure is the more interesting number here: more than half of salon owners in that report cut the number they trained. That is a training problem as well as a cost problem.
The BHC's pitch is that a VAT reduction would help salons take on more staff and invest in training. That links the tax ask to the training problem rather than treating them as separate.