Labour’s business tax raids have been condemned by a Question Time audience, with one woman telling Cabinet minister Jonathan Reynolds she has been put off creating a start-up.

The Business Secretary was asked by Jill Harris whether the planned increase in taxes will harm the economy and how the Government can hope to encourage entrepreneurship with the raid.

BBC host Fiona Bruce asked Ms Harris how the changes will affect her. The audience member said that while the National Insurance change has a limited effect on her business because she only has a small number of employees, she knows others who are impacted.

She said: “I have a friend who is a hairdresser and his costs are going to go up £2,000 a month as a result of the increase in the national minimum wage and also changes to National Insurance.”

Mr Reynolds insisted the Government is protecting small businesses and employers through other changes to the tax system.

However, he “readily acknowledged” the Government is asking “a lot” of small businesses in other areas, blaming the economic inheritance left to them by the Conservatives.

Mr Reynolds was also confronted by a second audience member who blasted the Government’s plans as “just not right!”

She fumed: “I have been a business owner myself, and I’m also an employee, so I see different sides of it.

“As an entrepreneur I’m also wanting to start up a new business but I’m not encouraged by what the Government are offering and quite frankly I’d rather stay and be an employee.

“Also on the effect on employees, those on the lower income – how can we sustain paying that increase in National Insurance.

“It’s just not right! There’s something wrong there and it needs to be reviewed.”

The British Retail Consortium (BRC) has warned that Rachel Reeves’s Budget has made job losses “inevitable” and higher prices “a certainty”.

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The BRC set out its stark analysis in a letter to the Chancellor, which read: “The sheer scale of new costs in the autumn Budget and the speed with which they occur, together with costs from a raft of other regulation, create a cumulative burden that will make job losses inevitable.”

The group represents major supermarkets, such as Asda and Tesco, as well as other high street favourites such as B&Q.

On Question Time, Damian Hinds, for the Conservatives, slammed Labour and its lack of a growth plan.

He fumed: “We assumed after all this talk that when Rachel Reeves stood up at the Despatch Box she was going to unveil the great growth plan of all time.

“Not only were there no growth-promoting measures in the Budget, it actually had the effect of reducing the projected growth.”