It is fair to say that it has been a busy few weeks from my own perspective representing the Local Business Forum in Coventry but, also, at a national level too.
Since the General Election, there has been a real focus on Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ first Budget and there was, without doubt, plenty to think about from a very long speech that included a whole host of measures that will have an impact on businesses.
To a degree, now that everything is out in the open in terms of changes to National Insurance and minimum wage, firms across the city can, at least, start to plan knowing where they stand from a taxation point of view. I’m not saying it will be easy and the changes to NI – while predicted – are going to be costly to employers.
Certainty does, of course, have a big bearing on businesses’ willingness and capability to invest and an area that really needs clarity is around electric vehicles.
Manufacturers have switched away from combustion engines on the instructions of Government but the consumer is yet to follow suit. It’s led to noises about the 2035 deadline for all new vehicles to be electric being shifted and it’s put the automotive sector into a bit of a grey area, which means clarification is needed.
I attended an event at the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre (UKBIC) in the region with the Chamber’s Manufacturing Automotive Construction & Engineering (MACE) group recently. It is great to have such a facility in the area – with the potential for a Gigafactory too – and we can really put Coventry and Warwickshire at the heart of this new technology now and into the future.
But industry needs to know what the future holds so it can move forward, again with some certainty.
The other event I attended in my role as a business owner and the Forum chair was a breakfast with the Bank of England agent for the West Midlands, Graeme Chaplin.
While the details of the meeting are confidential to allow businesses to feed back to him honestly, it was clear that interest rates are going to fall again – but it’s just not clear how far or how fast!
Oh, for some certainty…
