When I bought a house last December, my stamp duty went from around £20,000 to nearly £40,000 overnight.
I had no choice but to pay what if I did not have the money? I would have lost my house. These guys just don’t care.
I had been saving for years to buy a house and wanted to ensure that I could afford it before I took the jump. Mortgage, solictor, fees, stamp duty - the list goes on.
Raising the money all came as a great stress, especially as I had a teenage daughter at school heading towards a law degree - I had to make sure her future was taken care of.
'I almost lost my home over stamp duty. What Angela Rayner has done makes my blood boil' | Gez Chetal/PA
We struggled to sell our house at that time and had to take a huge £80,000 cut to get a deal over the line.
We had just about got our pennies together for the new property when we were hit with a massive hike in stamp duty overnight.
I was at a crossroads. I thought, 'What do we do? How do we find another £17,000? Should we stay put and lose the new house or find a way to raise more money overnight?
My stress was compounded by the spiralling hospitality business rates at my hotel.
We had to pull out everything to make it happen, and what did the Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner do? She saved £40,000 in stamp duty on her new seaside flat.
Where is the justice in all this? We seem to be paying and paying as the government just ignores the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMES) that I strive to support with my business awards and fundraising to help everyone who needs it.
People and businesses come to me locally for help, and I’m not the government but a local entrepreneur trying to assist others to survive.