{"id":4940,"date":"2020-03-13T11:42:10","date_gmt":"2020-03-13T10:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gpsj.co.uk\/?p=4940"},"modified":"2020-03-13T12:11:41","modified_gmt":"2020-03-13T11:11:41","slug":"comments-to-gpsj-on-the-2020-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gpsj.co.uk\/?p=4940","title":{"rendered":"Comments to GPSJ on the 2020 Budget"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Institute of Economic Development Executive Director Nigel Wilcock has told GPSJ:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThis might be the budget that brings Keynes back in vogue with the Office for Budget Responsibility expecting the expansionary measures to create a demand-led economic boost. Certainly, from the budget speech there was little not to like \u2013 some emergency fiscal loosening, some provision for the lower paid, and lots and lots of spending announcements.<\/p>\n

Clearly the Institute for Economic Development welcomes all the measures concerning rebalancing, some of the attention to green measures (although at the same time building roads and freezing fuel duty) and the tone of the entire delivery which continued the narrative of the importance of economic development and re-balancing.<\/p>\n

So why the caution? Well, partly because we are an Institute for economists. But partly because it is easy to get wrapped up in the headlines of the shopping list but less easy \u2018in real time\u2019 to properly grasp the materiality of some of the numbers which sound large but may amount to little \u2013 and because there was virtually nothing on taxation. It seems likely (though not mentioned) that when more detail on allowances is published they will either raise more through fiscal drag (by remaining the same) or be widely tweaked to raise more funding.<\/p>\n

One last important thought is what happens to local authorities \u2013 we remain clueless about long-term funding and once again there were many central government promises on business rates which is a tax that local government increasingly needs for its own funding. This remains a concern, fuelling a suspicion that local decision-making and spending powers are being eroded by this government despite a rhetoric to the contrary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ed Gibson, head of financial services at <\/strong>Shaw Gibbs<\/strong><\/a>, accountants and business advisers, comments on the change in tapered annual allowance thresholds in the Budget:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe change in the tapered annual allowance thresholds will indeed take most of the NHS consultants out of the tax trap, but only by making the taper system largely irrelevant because of how few people will now be affected. By retaining a piece of complicated and poor legislation, Sunak bottled it when he should have just scrapped it.\u201d<\/p>\n

National Fire Chiefs Council<\/strong><\/p>\n

The National Fire Chiefs Council has told GPSJ it welcomes the budget announcement of a new \u00a31 billion Building Safety Fund to assist with the removal of unsafe combustible cladding from private and social residential buildings, over 18 metres in height.<\/p>\n

The announcement is precisely what NFCC has been calling for since the Grenfell Tower fire. The previous \u00a3200 million fund to remove cladding from privately owned buildings was a step in the right direction, but it did not go far enough.<\/p>\n

This new fund will help to ease and then finally remove the financial burden on leaseholders and ensure people feel safe in their homes.<\/p>\n

Government heat network funding must benefit housing association residents, says Insite Energy <\/strong><\/p>\n

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunaq, outlined a number of funding commitments for low carbon heat in his Budget Statement. An element of that is a \u00a3270 investment in a new Green Heat Network Fund to run from 2022 to 2025, to follow on from the Heat Network Investment Project. It is designed to ensure that heat networks adopt the most cost-effective low carbon heat sources.<\/p>\n

Anthony Coates-Smith, managing director of Insite Energy, a London-based heat network metering and billing payment specialist, which manages approximately 250 UK heat network schemes, says:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe announcement of a new Green Heat Network Fund is a positive reinforcement of the role that well designed and operated heat networks can play in achieving the UK\u2019s \u2018net zero\u2019 2050 challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, we believe the biggest opportunity to reduce carbon emissions and importantly, to reduce fuel poverty, is to radically improve underperforming heat networks at existing sites which have had no access to improvement funds under the current Heat Network Investment Project. These sites include single building<\/em> heat networks, such as those owned and\/or operated by housing associations.<\/p>\n

\u201cHousing association stock, which represents 60% of the social housing where heat networks could and should be fitted, consists mainly or entirely of single-building sites. Their average 120 units per building is more than enough to make a heat network viable and their residents are arguably in greatest need of the financial benefits from such government support. The provision of heat to these sites is not undertaken on a profitable basis, in contrast to the \u2018district heating schemes\u2019 of two or more buildings. It is disappointing that this major constituent of the heat market being ignored yet again.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe urge the government to address the energy efficiency of existing <\/em>housing stock, 80% of which will still be around in 2050.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wines of Great Britain, the association for the English & Welsh wine industry in response to the duty freeze on wine in today\u2019s Budget:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are very pleased that the Chancellor has decided to hold wine duty unchanged this year, which is a fair and welcome support for our growing English and Welsh wine production industry. We will continue to make the case for more targeted relief for small producers and sales at the cellar door which will encourage growth in our industry and generate significant economic benefits (including additional tax revenues) for the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simon Robinson, Chairman, WineGB<\/p>\n

ADBA responds to Budget 2020<\/strong><\/p>\n

Responding to the 2020 Budget, Charlotte Morton, Chief Executive of the Anaerobic Digestion & Bioresources Association (ADBA), said:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhilst there is an understandable focus on addressing the coronavirus, climate change is a far greater threat, as Prof Brian Hoskins, founding director of the Grantham Institute on Climate Change, highlighted yesterday. The urgency of tackling it requires us to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to zero as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

As our recent report \u2018Biomethane: The Pathway to 2030\u2019 demonstrated, there is no net zero without biogas. Whilst it is good news that there is commitment to support biomethane injection into the gas grid post March 2021, the government\u2019s ambition to see a tripling of the current level of production by 2030 is only around 38% of the AD industry\u2019s potential.<\/p>\n

In the year the UK hosts COP26, we encourage the government to treble its ambition so that our industry is able to fully support the decarbonisation of agriculture, heat, transport and waste management to reduce total UK emissions by 6% whilst also creating 30,000 new green jobs throughout the UK by 2030, and we look forward to continuing to work with Government to this end.\u201d<\/p>\n