‘That’s two people we won’t hire now’: bosses react to Reeves’s tax rises

Employers say they will be counting costs of budget amid increases to national insurance contributions

• Reeves accused of betraying small family firms

Marie Cooper has plans to grow her Midlands engineering business next year, making more of the pistons and pipework that planes, cars and oilfield machinery need.

That should have aligned well with the chancellor Rachel Reeves's hopes to grow the UK economy, but after the first Labour budget since 2010, Cooper has been left looking at tens of thousands of pounds in extra taxes.