Farmer Peter Huntley spends his Sundays running a flower stall at a market and car boot sale in North Cave in the East Riding of Yorkshire. “These flowers come from all over,” he says, pointing at the colourful array of blossoms sitting in buckets in the soggy field. “Those roses are from Kenya.”



Huntley, 68, has seen the costs of importing flowers increase sharply since the pound fell following the vote to leave the EU in June. “The prices of everything are going up,” he says. “I personally think we should have stayed in because of the benefits of being in a big group.”

Last summer, 60% of people voted to leave the EU in the East Riding of Yorkshire – where Brexit secretary David Davis has been MP for Haltemprice and Howden (and its predecessor Boothferry) since 1987.

According to the Electoral Reform Society, the constituency – made up of more affluent areas to the west of Hull city centre and pretty surrounding towns and villages – is a “super-safe” Tory seat, having been represented by the party since 1837. The seat has an employment rate six points above the average of 74.5%.



Neither Huntley nor his friend and fellow farmer Richard Brown, 67, say they pay much attention to the budget. “They rarely do anything to help us lot,” says Brown.

He is worried about the impact that Brexit will have on his farm, which has been in his family since the 1960s and where he grows wheat and barley. Since the referendum the costs of fertiliser have skyrocketed, he says.

“You used to be able to buy Lithuanian fertiliser £20 a tonne cheaper [than English fertiliser], but now it’s the other way around,” he says. “I know we should buy English anyway, but when it was £20 dearer than the foreign stuff, we were always going to go for the cheaper. It’s just as good.”

Brown wants the government to provide reassurance that farmers won’t lose the single farm payment they get from the EU, saying that many farms in the area would go out of business without it.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Vintage bric-a-brac at the North Cave market, East Yorkshire, in Brexit secretary David Davis’s Haltemprice and Howden constituency. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

Despite being at odds with the Brexit secretary on the merits of staying in the European Union, both farmers agree that he is “a nice enough bloke” and a good MP. “Most farmers vote Conservative,” says Brown.

Patricia Sproat, 79, and Becky Worrall, in her 30s, are sitting at adjoining stalls selling bric-a-brac. Both describe themselves as working class lasses and say they vote Labour.

Sproat is agitated by an article on the front page of the Sunday Express, headlined: “Health Cash Squandered on Aid.” Asked what she wants to see in the budget she says: “First of all, we need to stop giving money away to things like that. £15m sent abroad. No money should be sent abroad. Our country should get the money.”

She thinks the country is going “down, down, down” and says she doesn’t blame Worrall for making her decision to move to Australia in May.

Worrall teaches animal management at a nearby further education college. She says she decided to move to Australia because they have “legislation that protects quality of life” unlike the UK. Asked what she wanted from the budget she says her priorities would be more money for education and the NHS.

She says she wants more to be done to tackle wealth inequality between the north and the south of the country, but also argues that the north-west is given preferential treatment to the north-east. “There are lots of places further north than us that had amazing industry and it’s all been smashed to bits by countless governments and it’s just devastating. The people in the north-east have never been recognised.”



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Farmer Richard Brown (right) at the Sunday market and car boot sale at North Cave. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

Both Sproat and Worrall agree that the government should do something about fuel duty. “I’d like to have a word with them about why we’re taxed four times over for using a vehicle,” says Worrall. “You’ve got to have a car when you live up here because there’s no proper bus service.”

At the Star Inn in the nearby village of Willerby – where families are tucking into large Sunday roasts – the manager Hayley Waller, 37, says the area is doing well, but that there are ever increasing burdens on her business. She was forced to hike prices on her menu in December to respond to the rising cost of produce. She will also see an increase in business rates and the national living wage (to £7.50 an hour) at the end of the financial year. “I need to pass on the price increases to the customer, but obviously if I go too far people won’t come.”

She normally votes Conservative; she voted to leave the European Union, believing it was time the UK stopped giving its money away to other countries. Despite the short-term negative impact of the Brexit vote on her business, she remains optimistic. “I think it’ll be all right in the end,” she says.

The view from north London

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Kawa Hamarash, owner of the north London Hawraman Cafe. Will he be smiling on budget day? Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian

Cafe owner Kawa Hamarash is not expecting much help in this week’s budget. He is feeling the pressure from rising costs and customers becoming more cautious, but he doubts Philip Hammond will have anything to soothe the pain.

“Spending is down compared with last year,” says Hamarash, sitting at one of the little painted tables in his Hawraman Cafe on London’s Chalk Farm Road. “It looks like people don’t want to spend. Even if they have it, they don’t want to spend because they don’t know what the future will be.”

Hamarash, who moved to the UK from Kurdistan in 1998, runs two cafes with his brother in Camden, a borough which voted by 75% to remain in the EU. The uncertainty prompted by the leave result is compounding pressures that the brothers already faced from rental costs and business rates – a tax on commercial outlets which is set to rise steeply in April.

They are costs that have already pushed many neighbouring businesses under, says the 52-year-old. “I can tell you all about how people have come here and collapsed. They come and they can’t keep the business going because of rents and business rates.”

Now the pound’s sharp fall since the vote to leave the EU is adding to the pressure on cafes and restaurants because it makes imported food ingredients more expensive. “We have a Greek supplier for bread, grains and halloumi and their prices have gone up, coffee is going up, milk is going up,” says Hamarash.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Shadow secretary of state for Brexit Keir Starmer. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

The cafe owner says his local MP, shadow Brexit minister Keir Starmer, appears supportive. But he does not see much help coming from government. “They are always saying they promote business but in reality nothing practical happens.”

The pound’s fall has not been all bad news, however. Other businesses in Starmer’s London constituency have seen upsides as tourists flock to the UK on shopping sprees.

Family-run chain Edwardian Hotels London has four hotels in Starmer’s Holborn and St Pancras constituency. Its bookings started rising straight after the referendum, says group commercial director Hasnain Alloo. “There is no doubt that the fall in value of the pound has made the city appealing to foreign travellers, particularly those from the US, Middle East and China,” said Alloo.

Philip Hammond vows UK will fight back if it gets bad Brexit deal Read more

In another part of the constituency, Ian Roberts, who runs legal recruitment firm Central Legal Personnel in Holborn is sensing caution among the many law firms that occupy former barrister Starmer’s patch. “There is a general level of nervousness out there,” he says. “I would say it’s almost entirely Brexit-related.”

However, the major concern, he says, is not Brexit but business rates. “What can he do about Brexit? ... The only thing he can do in the budget is offer us something on business rates,” said Roberts. “It’s such an outdated model ... that hits the bottom line very quickly.”

The change in business rates payments from April is down to the revaluation of property in Britain. The revaluation is likely to benefit struggling high streets in northern England. London, however, will see the big increases.

There are other worries too, says Elliot Moss, who chairs the business group Bee London. Moss says firms are worried about future trading relationships, how any uncertainty might hit investment and how easily they can access skilled workers after Brexit.

The seat is home to hotels that employ large numbers of EU workers and tech firms such as Google, which recently confirmed plans to build a new headquarters in nearby King’s Cross and create 3,000 jobs. “If you talk to tech companies, they are very fearful about being able to get great talent in,” says Moss.

London’s share of EU nationals is higher than anywhere else in the UK with around 12% from EU countries, compared with 4% across the UK as a whole. Around 13% of the 5m jobs in London – 600,000 jobs – were held by workers born in EU countries in 2015, according to the London Assembly’s economy committee.

The committee noted roughly a third of staff in the hospitality sector and around a quarter in the construction sector were born in other EU countries. It warned of “a significant risk” to the capital’s economy and to the wider UK economy if sectors particularly dependent on EU labour lose access to workers.

Employment is also a key concern post-Brexit for local people, not just those who commute in and out. The employment rate in Holborn & St Pancras, at 61%, is well below the national rate of 75%. Among the economically inactive in this seat 42% want a job – almost double the rate than in David Davis’s seat.

“That raises policy issues of how are you going to make sure people who live in these successful places have access to the opportunities that are there? How do they benefit from the London boom?” asks Paul Swinney, an economist at the Centre for Cities thinktank.