The Liberal Democrat MP argued that, while middle earners were prepared to accept some pain, in the form of higher taxes and lower public spending, in order to rescue the wider economy, they would be expecting some return on their sacrifices in future.
And while the Lib Dem pledge on an increase in the personal allowance – the level at which people begin to pay income tax – to £10,000 has been adopted as a long-term aim by the coalition, Mr Laws argued that there would be a ‘strong case’ for then doing something to help those a little further up the income ladder.
He said that if the government succeeded in its pledge to eradicate the deficit within five years, the scope for tax cuts would become clear at that stage.
However, he also urged the Prime Minister to keep a close eye on the effect of spending cuts on public services, to ensure they did not deteriorate as a result – illustrating the difficult balancing act the government must still perform.
Mr Laws is certainly correct that those across the income spectrum have taken their share of the pain as the government has battled to bring the budget deficit down – but in order to keep the public onside, they must ensure those on low to middle incomes that they have not been forgotten.
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( 3.1 / 184 )The government’s enterprise adviser, Lord Young, found himself swiftly slapped down by his new boss David Cameron yesterday after appearing to downplay the impact of the recession and suggesting the majority of Britons have ‘never had it so good’.
Echoing a quote from 1960s Prime Minister Harold MacMillan – which received a similarly mixed response – Lord Young’s argument was that the drop in mortgage rates had left many people better off, while the proposed job losses as a result of public spending cuts were ‘within the margin of error’ in a labour market of 30million.
It is certainly true that this recession has differed from previous downturns which were often characterised by rocketing interest rates and inflation – while this time rates are at record lows and inflation, while above target, has remained under control.
But that does not necessarily mean everyone feels better off. Not everyone is a homeowner, and not all of those who are have benefited from falling interest rates. Anyone who took out a tracker deal before the credit crunch is in a very advantageous position, but new deals are far less generous and a slowing property market means people who may need to move are not in a position to do so.
Furthermore, public spending cuts are likely to affect people directly – if they lose their job – or indirectly through loss of purchasing power both by public bodies and by those who worked for them.
There is a fine line between looking on the positive side and being insensitive to the plight of others and it is to Lord Young’s credit that he quickly apologised. Hopefully lessons have been learned and those in authority will be more careful how they choose their words in future.
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( 3 / 171 )There’s a lot to be said for flexibility in the working world. Many businesses depend on staff willing to work shift patterns involving unsocial hours and others get the job done thanks to employees regularly coming in a few minutes early, not clocking out on the stroke of 5pm or skipping a lunch break from time to time.
From the employees’ point of view, flexible working can be invaluable. Being able to drop the kids off at school without worrying about being late or leaving early to give an elderly parent a helping hand, so that they can carry on living independently in their home home, can be great motivating incentive to give 110 per cent to the job.
Home Secretary Theresa May, in her role as Minister for Women and Equalities, yesterday gave a speech in which she said that flexible working should be an option for all employees, not just parents and cares.
She said some of Britain’s most innovative and successful SMEs were already showing that flexible working was good for their businesses as well and pledged: “We will extend the right to request to all, helping to shift behaviour away from the traditional nine to five model of work that can act as a barrier to so many people and that often doesn’t make sense for many modern businesses.”
All of which sounds pretty sensible, you might think, in a world that has come a long way from the tradition of jobs for life and where balancing home and work commitments can require the skills of a contortionist. Employees who would welcome the same right to request flexible hours as parents and carers are unlikely to feel that way because they are lazy or workshy: there’s going to be a good reason for them wanting to work in a way that’s a bit out of the ordinary or might even see them losing out financially due to reduced hours.
So some workers might find the reaction of the Institute of Directors (IoD) to Mrs May’s comments a tad disappointing. Alistair Tebbit, the IoD’s spokesman, says Mrs May should let businesses decide for themselves how they manage their staff rather than creating new employment rights.
He adds: “The people running businesses have a vastly better idea of how to manage their employees than any government minister. A government truly committed to being pro-enterprise would be thinking about abolishing the existing right to request flexible working.”
Fighting talk, Mr Tebbit, and no doubt there are many businesses out there that would firmly agree. Some of these will also probably be the employers that expect a great deal of flexibility from their staff without much going back the other way.
Perhaps the answer is for employers and employees to work together to find the working arrangements that suit them best. In today’s tough times, there are many people so glad to have a job that they’ll put up with rigid working arrangements and an old school management style. But when the economy is back on track and workers have a few more options, bosses that fail to be flexible might just find their staff voting with their feet.
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( 3 / 189 )The news that Prince William and long-term girlfriend Kate Middleton are to marry next year is surely something that only anti-royalist or republicans could fail to welcome. Even they would have to be pretty churlish if they didn’t wish William and Kate well for the future, in the same way as they would any young couple planning a life together.
With news of the engagement less than 24 hours old, the debate has already started about what kind of wedding would be appropriate in this age of austerity. As is only to be expected, there are convincing arguments for both sides.
The latest unemployment figures are due out today and they’re unlikely to bring much joy. The economic recovery must sometimes still seem a very long way off for families struggling to cope with the financial and emotional challenges of redundancy or a fruitless search for work, for public sector organisations facing massive spending cuts, for small businesses fighting to keep their heads above water in difficult trading conditions.
With those circumstances in mind, a Charles and Diana-style St Paul’s Cathedral, pews packed with the great and the good from around the world, a public holiday for the nation and parties on every other street might seem a little insensitive and a lower key ceremony more in tune with the times.
But just hang on a minute. On Monday, David Cameron said in his foreign policy speech to the Lord Mayor’s banquet in London that to protect and build Britain’s place in the world, “when it is harder than ever for this country to earn a living, we need to mobilise all the resources we can”.
What more powerful resources could there be to mobilise than a stonking royal wedding, done with all the panache, professionalism, pomp and ceremony that is a hallmark of our nation at its best?
And what better way could there be to make sure the eyes of the world are on us? Charles and Diana’s wedding attracted a global TV audience of 750 million people and in these tech-savvy times, William and Kate could expect even more to be tuning in.
Republicans may disagree, but if a royal wedding isn’t a perfect opportunity to remind the world that Britain is still here, it’s still Great and it still means business, it’s hard to think of a better one.
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( 3 / 233 )The Institute of Directors (IoD) releases its UK economic forecast for 2011 today and it’s a bit of a mixed bag.
On the one hand the, IoD forecasts growth in GDP of 1.2 per cent next year and warns that if that figure proves correct, Chancellor George Osborne may need to find more spending cuts – or tax rises – to meet his budget deficit targets.
On the other, while the institute says that there’s a need for greater realism about weakness elsewhere in the economy, there’s too much doom and gloom surrounding the October Spending Review.
And while there are what it calls “headwinds” holding back the economy, there are also “tailwinds” pushing it forward – corporate finances that are generally in good shape, for example, and private sector job creation – which the IoD believes should be enough to prevent a double dip recession, provided consumer and business confidence doesn’t begin to slide.
A bit like the curate’s egg, then, the IoD forecast is good in parts and it won’t be until this time next year that we know whether they have hit the nail on the head.
The IoD says that the conditions produced by “an extraordinary financial crisis, fiscal explosion and the introduction of unconventional monetary policy” mean that the level of economic uncertainty is very high.
And it admits: “In such circumstances, economic forecasting becomes what it always has been, an issue of feel and judgement,” which is perhaps something that many of us have long suspected.
So an interesting exercise might be for us all to make some predictions about the UK economy in 2011 and watch how accurate we are over the coming months. Our own “feel and judgement” is that a good percentage of us are probably as likely to get it right as the experts.
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