YHCC launch business manifesto
Tuesday, 25 Aug 2009
Richard Wightman, YHCC President, wrote an opinion article for the Yorkshire Post to coincide with the launch of the Chambers Business Manifesto, Back to Business:
Thursday 3rd June 2010 is the last possible date for the general election that will shape our region for decades to come. The seismic economic events of the past year have fundamentally changed the political landscape, which makes 2010 the most important ballot for thirty years.
Yorkshire’s four million electorate will get the chance to vote. Businesses have no such luxury, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have our say. That’s why we’re launching Back to Business, our Yorkshire & Humber Business Manifesto today.
It contains dozens of specific policy ideas which would make a real difference to businesses in the region. All parliamentary candidates in Yorkshire & Humber should spend time thinking about how they will respond to the business policy agenda. If they fail to do so we risk turning an acute recession into a chronic decline in prosperity.
Prospective parliamentarians must not assume an automatic return to economic growth. The foundations which supported the last decades of prosperity have crumbled. Eye-watering levels of personal and government debt, some deeply damaged financial institutions and a tarnished faith in the market system now coincide with unprecedented global competition. A very different environment in which our businesses will need to thrive is emerging.
The manifesto argues that the Government should make the success of businesses its number one priority. It is only if businesses are successful that new jobs will be created and communities regenerated. It is only if businesses are encouraged to invest and innovate that they can create the products and services which enhance our lives. And it is only if they grow that tax revenues will be rebuilt to fund our public services.
There are three key strands to our policy manifesto.
Firstly, the recession response must be at the top of the in-tray. Measures to restore finance for business, prompt public sector payment, deferred business taxation and a moratorium on new employment legislation would help many companies get through tough times. But more profound change is needed. The next decade must be fundamentally different from the last, during which the political focus has been on where to spend wealth rather than how to help business create it.
The public spending debate will define the election campaign. Out of control public finances damage business confidence and deter investment by making the future tax regime unpredictable. All parties must face the unprecedented scale of the problem and produce a credible plan to narrow the deficit, by reducing spending and rebuilding tax revenues. This can be achieved without hiking business tax rates. A low tax economy, especially a globally competitive corporate tax regime, will deliver greater tax yield than tokenistic tax promises to shore up core supporters.
Commitments to ring-fence departmental budgets are political luxuries the economy can’t afford. No area of expenditure should be off limits, including the NHS which must find efficiencies in its £119bn annual budget. Government must prioritise the areas of genuine investment which deliver the long term returns necessary to create future prosperity. This includes transport which accounts for just 3% of public spending, but is usually the first to be cut.
Secondly, the next Government should scrap some specific policies conceived in more prosperous economic times. The proposed rise in employers National Insurance Contributions in 2011 is a tax on jobs at precisely the time we need businesses to create them. Creating jobs will increase tax revenue. The rise in Small Business Corporation Tax penalises the success we need to incentivise. The abolition of rate relief on empty commercial properties damages the prospects for regeneration. This relief should be reintroduced. The temptation of workplace parking levies should be removed from councils looking to fill holes in their budgets.
Finally, the big challenge is finding the policies to reinvent Yorkshire’s economy and prepare it for future opportunities and growth. The manifesto has plenty of ideas about what the next Government should do including retaining an explicit commitment to reduce the prosperity gap between North and South, giving business a direct say in the future of Yorkshire Forward and shifting real power from Whitehall.
Turning around Yorkshire’s disappointing record on productivity should be the key driver for our new economic and industrial policy. It must promote our natural prowess in manufacturing, our emerging strength in financial services and pursue new green industries. But it is investment in our infrastructure that will make the difference. Transforming education and skills, speeding up planning and filling the energy gap are all essential. It is the boost to the capacity of key links to our ports, airports and city-regions that is most at risk from any short-sighted cuts to capital spending. Promises for much needed capacity on the M1 and M62 have already been dropped and the half-baked proposal for a partial high speed rail line lacks ambition. We must get a fairer deal on transport funding to help businesses close the prosperity gap.
‘Back to Business’ is our blueprint. It fires the starting gun for parliamentary candidates to debate with us and win the local business ‘vote’ behind their policy agenda. It’s never been more important that our 2010 intake of parliamentarians understand what it takes to make business, and therefore our great region, succeed in the future. They must rise to this challenge and studying our manifesto would be a good start.
Download YHCC launch business manifesto file
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