Do you think that the Conservative Party has rather fallen
out of love with business and the whole concept of the free market?
By business, I'm referring less to the multinational behemoths, oligarchs and firms run by those close to ministers, but more to the hundreds of thousands of small and medium enterprises that create most of this nation's and region’s wealth and which employ the vast majority of the country's workers.
It was these industrious business communities that often supplied - and still supply - the ideas, energy and finance needed to support local Conservative associations and to campaign for the election of Conservative councillors and MPs.
This was an arrangement based on mutual trust and identity: after all no other party understood businesses needs for low levels of energy-stifling bureaucracy and rulemaking and the need for a taxation system that encouraged risk-taking and which rewarded growth and success.
But now, I'm not so sure.
Don't get me wrong: I do not believe that the Conservatives have alienated this core constituency anything like the same extent as successive elitist Labour leaderships have patronised and abandoned much of the white working class.
But the recent trend is certainly downwards.
I am, broadly speaking, an admirer of our Prime Minister. I recall both his pivotal role in securing the vote to leave the European Union in 2016 and his administration’s delivery on that mandate when we finally left the EU at the end of 2020.
Yet he hasn’t always been careful about the terms he uses about the business community, including the use of the F-word in 2018, albeit directed primarily at ‘Big Business’ whingers from the Brexit campaign and subsequent negotiations.
Since then, it seems as if the Government has picked up that mood music and increasingly begun to take businesses for granted.
You might legitimately respond by pointing out the support in the forms of loans and grants handed out during the initial part of the COVID19 pandemic in response of the massive restrictions placed on those businesses and society more generally.
But much of that assistance was only forthcoming thanks to intensive lobbying by the main business bodies, including the British Chambers of Commerce. And in spite of that lobbying, many of the schemes, including the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) and Bounce Back Loans ( BBL), excluded a large swathe of one-man and smaller businesses, including those that remunerated their owners via dividends as opposed to through the PAYE system.
The Government’s approach to PPE procurement further underscored a growing suspicion that unless you had a personal connection with a minister, then your business, no matter how relevant its offer, was unlikely to be fast tracked to a contract.
This VIP Lane seemed to benefit companies with little or no previous experience of producing PPE to the required standards, but excluded many smaller manufacturers who had both the experience and the technology to supply such items.
The Government’s promised review into the dysfunctional business rates system has resulted in a very limited series of technical consultations on minor reforms (more frequent revaluations, support for investment in green plant and machinery etc.) rather than its complete replacement with a business taxation system fit for the twenty-first century and the move away from the High Street to Internet shopping.
Then the Government’s response to acute labour shortages in specific sectors has suggested that the very flexibilities gained as a result of having control over our own immigration regime are not being properly used, whether that be HGV drivers, care staff or horticultural workers.
In the last example, the Home Office has imposed a 13.4% increase to the minimum wage rates that employers can offer to overseas citizens on a seasonal worker visa, without consultation and with no notice given.
Remember: these are roles with very little take-up by British workers, but without whom there is every chance that significant numbers of fruit and crops may not be picked and reach their markets in time.
The recent Spring Statement was a particularly important missed opportunity to help businesses facing increasingly challenging trading conditions. It’s almost as if Whitehall and Westminster has shut its ears to the economic realities being experienced on the front line, especially the impact of inflation.
The Chancellor delivered lot of promises about future possible tax cuts on business investment, adjustments to the Apprenticeship Levy and extensions to R&D tax credits. But in terms of the here and now, he seemed to have only offered a few limited concessions in terms of fuel duty reductions and business rates discounts for some specific sectors.
With many firms facing considerable challenges in terms of price increases and the resulting squeeze on their cashflow, the Statement rather body swerved the really important decisions regarding delaying increases to employer NI contributions and corporation tax, and capping energy prices for small and medium enterprises.
All is not lost, of course. We have the Budget scheduled for the autumn. But let’s hope that the Conservative Party at the highest levels reverts to type and starts taking its business backbone seriously – before it’s too late.
There exists a great opportunity to get small businesses back on side by building competitive advantages into the taxes and systems imposed by the state. Failure to address this will result in the monopolistic approach favoured by Whitehall laziness and loved by BIG business.
By business, I'm referring less to the multinational behemoths, oligarchs and firms run by those close to ministers, but more to the hundreds of thousands of small and medium enterprises that create most of this nation's and region’s wealth and which employ the vast majority of the country's workers.
It was these industrious business communities that often supplied - and still supply - the ideas, energy and finance needed to support local Conservative associations and to campaign for the election of Conservative councillors and MPs.
This was an arrangement based on mutual trust and identity: after all no other party understood businesses needs for low levels of energy-stifling bureaucracy and rulemaking and the need for a taxation system that encouraged risk-taking and which rewarded growth and success.
But now, I'm not so sure.
Don't get me wrong: I do not believe that the Conservatives have alienated this core constituency anything like the same extent as successive elitist Labour leaderships have patronised and abandoned much of the white working class.
But the recent trend is certainly downwards.
I am, broadly speaking, an admirer of our Prime Minister. I recall both his pivotal role in securing the vote to leave the European Union in 2016 and his administration’s delivery on that mandate when we finally left the EU at the end of 2020.
Yet he hasn’t always been careful about the terms he uses about the business community, including the use of the F-word in 2018, albeit directed primarily at ‘Big Business’ whingers from the Brexit campaign and subsequent negotiations.
Since then, it seems as if the Government has picked up that mood music and increasingly begun to take businesses for granted.
You might legitimately respond by pointing out the support in the forms of loans and grants handed out during the initial part of the COVID19 pandemic in response of the massive restrictions placed on those businesses and society more generally.
But much of that assistance was only forthcoming thanks to intensive lobbying by the main business bodies, including the British Chambers of Commerce. And in spite of that lobbying, many of the schemes, including the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) and Bounce Back Loans ( BBL), excluded a large swathe of one-man and smaller businesses, including those that remunerated their owners via dividends as opposed to through the PAYE system.
The Government’s approach to PPE procurement further underscored a growing suspicion that unless you had a personal connection with a minister, then your business, no matter how relevant its offer, was unlikely to be fast tracked to a contract.
This VIP Lane seemed to benefit companies with little or no previous experience of producing PPE to the required standards, but excluded many smaller manufacturers who had both the experience and the technology to supply such items.
The Government’s promised review into the dysfunctional business rates system has resulted in a very limited series of technical consultations on minor reforms (more frequent revaluations, support for investment in green plant and machinery etc.) rather than its complete replacement with a business taxation system fit for the twenty-first century and the move away from the High Street to Internet shopping.
Then the Government’s response to acute labour shortages in specific sectors has suggested that the very flexibilities gained as a result of having control over our own immigration regime are not being properly used, whether that be HGV drivers, care staff or horticultural workers.
In the last example, the Home Office has imposed a 13.4% increase to the minimum wage rates that employers can offer to overseas citizens on a seasonal worker visa, without consultation and with no notice given.
Remember: these are roles with very little take-up by British workers, but without whom there is every chance that significant numbers of fruit and crops may not be picked and reach their markets in time.
The recent Spring Statement was a particularly important missed opportunity to help businesses facing increasingly challenging trading conditions. It’s almost as if Whitehall and Westminster has shut its ears to the economic realities being experienced on the front line, especially the impact of inflation.
The Chancellor delivered lot of promises about future possible tax cuts on business investment, adjustments to the Apprenticeship Levy and extensions to R&D tax credits. But in terms of the here and now, he seemed to have only offered a few limited concessions in terms of fuel duty reductions and business rates discounts for some specific sectors.
With many firms facing considerable challenges in terms of price increases and the resulting squeeze on their cashflow, the Statement rather body swerved the really important decisions regarding delaying increases to employer NI contributions and corporation tax, and capping energy prices for small and medium enterprises.
All is not lost, of course. We have the Budget scheduled for the autumn. But let’s hope that the Conservative Party at the highest levels reverts to type and starts taking its business backbone seriously – before it’s too late.
There exists a great opportunity to get small businesses back on side by building competitive advantages into the taxes and systems imposed by the state. Failure to address this will result in the monopolistic approach favoured by Whitehall laziness and loved by BIG business.
First published www.suffolkfreepress.co.uk & www.dissexpress.co.uk on Friday April 8, 2022
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