We could do better

21 Nov 2016

I’m all for allowing those that wish to hunt foxes to hunt foxes, but this is just not a national priority at the moment. I only mention this because the government seems to be tangenting off on School “reform” (comprehensives) and rumours are rife that there will be yet more tinkering with pensions in the Autumn Statement next week, along with a number of other items that could wait.

Brexit is the biggest challenge this country has faced since the war and we need our best brains and greatest talents to work on it. I suggest that any government department thinking of anything “new” not for the support of Brexit shelves the product and focuses departmental resources on what they can do to facilitate a successful withdrawal from the EU. And no departmental bickering or decisions calculated to win future elections. As Benjamin Franklin once said, “We had best all hang together or we will most assuredly hang separately.”

This change in our national focus can work, but we desperately need to get our collective act together. We are poised to succeed, but it would be all too easy to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Small businesses have confidence in the availability of bank funding, so that seems to be working. The FSB, however, is campaigning to get Teresa May to tackle the late payment culture and how many times have we heard this? Past government failures should not be causing distraction at this time, however in the spirit of Brexit it is not her department but it is a Brexit influencer, so delegate to the minister concerned and fire him is he doesn’t do his job. We can’t wander around wondering about policies at a time like this.

The latest Market Business Outlook survey notes that UK business optimism is at its lowest level in over 4 years, and this is because business knows that Junkers has his back to the wall and will try to out-negotiate us. We could help him by a vote in the Commons to disclose government strategy, but maybe better to get business-like and make our negotiating position stronger; we can move more quickly than the EU Supertanker, but we have to give our negotiators and government their heads (if they fail we can remove these later).

The Institute of Directors is another body reporting increased pessimism, but they suggest enhanced tax relief and at least a consultation on radical tax reforms as a solution – a stronger, clearer tax structure will be good for business and that is good for Brexit. Another useful thing would be to stop bashing private landlords and fix property taxes, perhaps replacing the lot with a single, simple annual tax (as suggested by the Institute of Economic Affairs); the new business rate regime is an anti-business policy that we cannot afford.

The ACCA recently suggested 5 ways to help small businesses. First, postpone the “making Tax Digital” implementation. It probably won’t work and we don’t need business horribly distracted and tax revenues disrupted right now. Too much, too soon. Secondly, they suggest raising the VAT threshold to £100,000, then third to increase tax relief on capital investment (the IoD has also called for a higher limit as noted above). They also suggest more Inheritance Tax reliefs (not really business, stay focussed!), and that we adopt OECD rules on tax avoidance, rather than reinventing the wheel – this sounds encouraging for overseas investors, and OECD rules may become more important to us than we think!

Most ministers can help, either by adopting a “Brexit 1st” mandate for their department’s activities, or it they can’t help then by doing nothing so as to concentrate all minds on the mammoth task at hand. Our local MP happens to be Minister for Sport, tourism, and some other things dumped into her department. So she knows a lot about how “Team GB” made our country spectacularly successful in sport: can she help her colleagues do the same for commerce? She needs to talk and they need to listen, but meanwhile the tourist industry is one of our biggest and most successful, now enhanced by the fall in Sterling. But we have not done much about this in the past. This is an income-earner and something that we can really pour resources into pre-Article 30. So some departments can get themselves well prepared, others can actually start to make Britain Great Again (sorry about that, but you see what I mean).