The government has this week published the special review 3 MPs and officials carried out into  the opportunities to reduce the regulatory burden and to have smarter regulation.
I agree with their main recommendation that future regulation should be proportionate and not based on the precautionary principle of EU regulations. I also agree Regulators should take into account competitiveness, competition and innovation. Regulations can benefit from partial exemption for innovative developments and trials.
I welcome the wish to abolish the 2019 Ports Directive which was agreed by the UK ports and government at the time be a needless extra burden on them. I also support amending the Weights and Measures Act to decriminalise and authorise the use of imperial measures if people wish.
I would liked to have seen other proposals to make life simpler and cheaper for entrepreneurs and small businesses.
I would include for example
- Raise the VAT registration threshold to lift more small businesses out of VAT. It is a major burden setting up a new VAT system for a small business, and a disincentive to growth.
- Take VAT off domestic fuel to cut fuel poverty and boost spending power of those on low incomes
- Remove VAT from insulation, boiler controls, new heating systems, draught excluders and other green products. Installing more of these is labour intensive and helpful.
- Remove need for a person paying full NI on earned income to claim deferral of extra NI on other earnings every year. This is a waste of time and government effort when no tax is due.
- Reverse M and S decision in ECJ allowing grouping of EU continental losses to cut U.K. Corporation Tax. HMT should  like this as it will collect more tax from U.K. successful businesses.
- Remove Digital Tax imposed unilaterally and await G7 or OECD agreement on how to tax digital activity other than through normal business taxes. This tax is leading to tariff retaliation from the USA, raises little money and causes trouble with on line/in shop retail hybrid businesses.
- Raise the Business rate exemption for smaller commercial property
- Exempt a self employed person from Employer NI for their first employee for the first two years.We need to grow more self employed businesses and create more jobs
- Remove threat of IR35 changes
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ENERGY
 10.Remove expensive requirement on energy companies to install Smart meters. Let them and their customers do so if they wish. This is a £20 bn public spending commitment which is causing energy businesses difficulties as well.
11,Revise UK energy policy to give greater priority to self sufficiency of electricity and to ensuring a safe margin of capacity as we used to enjoy.
12 Change generation mix by introducing more lower cost supply through a bidding process, as we need lower power prices for the onshoring of industry to the UK and more self reliance. The UK needs more biomass or green gas as baseload and can do with more hydro and pumped storage for flexibility. Too much reliance on wind is both costly given the need for backup and leaves us vulnerable on capacity on low wind days.
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BUSINESS
13 Speed up introduction of Freeports and make sure they have high levels of exemption from customs, taxes, and property restrictions.
14 Create new Enterprise Zones, including in conjunction with Free ports.
15 Change procurement rules allowing more UK only bidding for UK government contracts, as with MOD.UK government purchases should be much more UK rich in choice of goods. Why does the UK public sector import  any cars?
16 Develop the vaccine model where UK government backed a research project, helped with installation of production capacity and then had preference for purchasing product.
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FISHING
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17 Ban EU vessels fishing for shellfish in Class B waters in response to their ban on our exports
18 Step up policing of UK fishing rules on foreign vessels
19 Ban supertrawlers over 100m in length
20 Get DEFRA to roll out faster, better and more generous plans to step up UK domestic fishing capacity in both sea going vessels and processing fish
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FARMING
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21 Inject more attention to promote more food production in the UK into new subsidy schemes
- Speed up schemes to install more market gardening capacity into UK to produce our own temperate fruits and vegetables, and to extend the growing season under glass and polytunnels
23 Ensure tree planting schemes and subsidies are also linked to much more sustainable forestry to produce timber for home use. Why do we import timber to burn at Drax power station? Why donât we produce more of our own wood for housebuilding and furniture fabrication?
TRANSPORT
24.Reimpose road charge on foreign lorries using U.K. roads to help domestic haulage
25.Repeal the limitations placed on the Merchant Shipping Act by the ECJ, and develop a better framework for UK owned and registered ships. We need to encourage more UK flagged vessels.
I attach the check list from the Report of their suggestions. I would be interested in comments, as government will now consider all this. Many of their proposals takes the form of additional regulation for new areas which they wish to see done in a spirit of assisting the development of these areas. It would have been helpful to have some worked up proposals of how this might work.
THE Annex A: Full list of recommendations
A BOLD NEW REGULATORY FRAMEWORK FOR THE UK
1. Promote productivity, competition and innovation through a new framework of
proportionate, agile and less bureaucratic regulation.
1.1. Reimpose the âone in, two outâ regulatory duty on all government
departments.
1.2. Make the UK a global pioneer and leader in agile, adaptive regulation to
increase productivity, competition and innovation.
1.3. Create a lead Cabinet Minister and ensure there is a Cabinet Committee
responsible for the implementation of regulatory reform.
1.4. Mandate a new âProportionality Principleâ at the heart of all UK regulation.
1.5. Use digital sandboxes to test innovations more quickly and ensure regulation
is based on evidence of impact.
1.6. Regulators should introduce âscaleboxesâ to provide agile regulatory support
to high growth innovative scale-up companies.
1.7. Give regulators statutory objectives to promote competition and innovation in
the markets they regulate.
1.8. Delegate greater flexibility to regulators to put the principles of agile regulation
into practice, allowing more to be done through decisions, guidance and rules
rather than legislation.
1.9. Give the Regulatory Reform Committee a remit to scrutinise all regulators and
regulatory reform proposals. Bolster its resources, including with seconded
experts, to carry out this expanded function.
1.10. Include consideration of the wider effects of proposed policies in Regulatory
Impact Assessments, including on innovation, competition, the environment,
and trade.
1.11. Establish a framework for regulators to report publicly on how they have
promoted competition and innovation in the markets they regulate.
1.12. Produce a simple annual innovation scorecard to assess departments and
regulators on the markets they are responsible for.
1.13. Embed our recommendations in the UK Innovation Strategy, use
non-legislative and existing regulatory powers where possible and make use
of targeted primary legislation.
1.14. Set a UK standards strategy to promote the use of British standards
internationally as a way to boost UK influence and promote trade and exports.
SECTOR PROPOSALS
UK PENSIONS AND INVESTMENTS
2. Reform regulations limiting UK pension and insurance funds to enable greater
investment in UK domestic growth.
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2.1. Enable Defined Contribution (DC) pensions schemes to diversify their
investments into venture capital and businesses that drive Net Zero and
levelling up commitments.
2.2. Amend matching adjustment and risk margins in Solvency II to release
significant capital for investment in the UK.
2.3. Attract private investment to help regenerate local infrastructure and support
the UKâs levelling up agenda.
UK START-UP AND SCALE-UP FINANCE
3. Amend the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) and the Enterprise
Investment Scheme (EIS) to maximise Private Equity and Venture Capital
investment in growth industries.
3.1. Amend the age eligibility requirements for companies to access investment
through EIS and SEIS to ensure businesses outside London and the south
east benefit equally.
3.2. Increase the maximum level of SEIS investment.
3.3. Commit to the continuation of EIS beyond 2025.
FINANCIAL SERVICES
4. Restore a common law principles based approach to financial services
regulation.
4.1. Amend inherited MiFID II Position Limits to introduce greater flexibility while
preserving protections on critical contracts.
4.2. Introduce a more discretionary and judgment-based approach to calculating
Central Counterparty Clearing House (CCP) margins.
5. Deliver a regulatory framework that supports UK global leadership in FinTech
and digitalisation of financial services infrastructure.
5.1. Mandate the expansion of Open Banking to Open Finance quickly, and take a
more market-led, Australian-style approach.
5.2. Increase competition in the banking sector by adopting a graduated
regulatory approach for challenger banks.
5.3. Reducing Anti-Money Laundering (AML) burdens for new Open
Banking/Fintech services, which have been caught in the scope of the EU
AML Directive.
5.4. Accelerate UK plans to develop a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) and
launch a pilot within 12 – 18 months.
6. Amend disclosure and transparency requirements for financial services
products to make them more proportionate and less burdensome.
6.1. Remove the requirement to provide costs and charges reports to professional
investors and eligible counterparties from MiFID II.
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6.2. Remove the âinvestment recommendationâ disclosure requirements from
MAR for wholesale clients.
6.3. Confine the key information document disclosure requirement in PRIIPs to
genuinely complex packaged products.
DATA
7. Replace the UK General Data Protection Regulation 2018 with a new, more
proportionate, UK Framework of Citizen Data Rights to give people greater
control of their data while allowing it to flow more freely and drive growth
across healthcare, public services and the digital economy.
7.1. Reform GDPR to give people meaningful control of their data.
7.2. Reform GDPR for artificial intelligence, including by removing Article 22 of
GDPR and focussing instead on the legitimacy of automated
decision-making.
SMART GRID
8. Create the âsmartâ energy grid of the future, through interoperable data
standards, reforms to the energy retail market, regulation, and licencing, and a
new regulatory framework for smart appliances.
8.1. Support the deployment of low-carbon technologies on to8.2. Create clear consistent technical and regulatory standards for âenergy smartâ
appliances to support their roll out – creating a more stable energy network in
response to growing demands for energy.
8.3. Modernise energy retail regulation to support novel and innovative
participation in the energy market and improve consumer protections by using
activity-based regulation rather than supply licenses.
8.4. Reform the regulation framework for the retail energy market to enable
innovative approaches to tariff pricing and new products.
8.5. Prioritise investment in infrastructure in pricing negotiations with energy
market operators.
NET ZERO
9. Reform the current UK regulatory framework governing energy generation and
distribution to match the Governmentâs ambitions for green growth and Net
Zero.
9.1. Fully implement the short-term findings of the Offshore Transmission Network
Review, reforming offshore transmission connections to support disruptive
âpathfinderâ projects in the industry.
9.2. Reform the regulatory framework for offshore wind to simplify responsibilities
across government, and create a more coordinated offshore network that
uses standardised designs and can link with interconnectors at scale.
120
9.3. Reform OFTO regulations to unblock industry coordination of offshore wind
projects.
9.4. Review the Grid Code and other relevant technical codes and standards, to
ensure they adequately support innovative net-zero and decarbonisation
technologies.
9.5. Design and deliver an energy network âblueprintâ to support further delivery of
offshore wind power.
9.6. Create a new regulatory framework for hydrogen via a new Office for
Hydrogen in BEIS, encouraging investment and innovation in the sector.
9.7. Increase the legal limit on hydrogen blending by amending the Gas Safety1.5. Simplify and accelerate NIHR adoption and peer review process for trials that
are fully funded with standardisation of costing tools across academic and
commercial trials.
11.6. Streamline clinical trial set up by HRA adopting automated AI or digital
processing of ethical and trials approvals.
11.7. The MHRA and HRA should accelerate the adoption of novel clinical trial
processes through better digitising of trials applications and data and use of
novel models like UK Trials Acceleration Programme (TAP) and IMPACT with
the capacity to deliver registration level trials.
11.8. Replace the Caldicott data guardians with a HRA Single Data Controller
âOne-stop shopâ for Health Research Information Governance with
harmonised committees to reduce bureaucracy and standardise processes.
11.9. Establish a centralised health dataspine, where all data is stored for ease of
access by approved users across the health network, with standardised
format and approval routes for data collection and curation.
11.10. Reform the ICH GCP Guidelines 1995 to embrace the latest novel digital and
biomarker end points, and replace âstandard of careâ control arms with
âsynthetic control armsâ derived from RWE (Real World Evidence) and RWD
(Real World Data).
11.11. Accelerate Access to innovation by establishing clear digital framework for
Conditional Approvals and Adaptive Licensing of new therapies like gene
therapies based on data including from the new Electronic Patient Recorded
Outcomes Measure (EPROMs) dataspine.
11.12. Expand the MHRA remit and Innovation Team to include promotion of UK
leadership in innovative trial design, new accelerated access regulatory
pathways, standardising format and approval routes for data collecting,
curating and collation, and use of novel clinical and digital biomarkers and AI.
11.13. Set global Standards in Clinical Research Skills through a UK professional
standard for clinical trials research nurses, clinical trial managers, data
managers & clinical trials pharmacists.
11.14. MHRA to work with stakeholders to establish a UK Regulatory Innovation Hub
on the same model as the US Centers of Excellence in Regulatory Science14. MHRA to work with stakeholders to establish a UK Regulatory Innovation Hub
and Innovation (CERSIs).
11.15. Regulation of medical cannabinoids and medicinal CBD should move from
the Home Office to DHSC / MHRA to create a regulatory pathway for
assessment and approval based on patient benefit.
DIGITAL HEALTH
12. Establish a clear regulatory pathway for new digital health technology from
approved health apps to integrated healthcare ICS system management to
ensure the UK is at the forefront of the digitalisation of healthcare.
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12.1. Remove the barriers to adoption of health apps by creating a new digital
health regulatory unit within the MHRA, responsible for establishing clear
digital interoperability standards and an integrated regulatory pathway for
development of Consumer Healthcare Apps.
12.2. Remove barriers to accelerate the integration of business-to-consumer digital
health, and create a simple regulatory framework to help new companies
develop tools that recruit, diagnose and treat otherwise hard-to-reach
patients.
12.3. Remove barriers to local health prevention through the new ICS by
establishing a digital framework for assessing Disease Cost and Population
Health by each local authority area.
12.4. Reform GDPR to improve use of healthcare data by establishing federated
models of data sharing and creating a joint sandbox between the ICO and the
HRA.
12.5. Update regulations on medical devices to represent the latest technological
advancements and to licence and adopt AI and AI software as a diagnostic
device.
12.6. Remove the barriers to mental health apps by accelerating the integration of
business to consumer patient wellness apps like IESO Healthcare with clinical
neuroscience research networks like the Case Register Information System
and NIHR research databases like Incliseran to create an integrated UK
digital health spine for mental health.
12.7. Extend the IAPT outcome measurement framework (or an IAPT like
framework) to Children and Young People and to other therapeutic
interventions (e.g. drug treatment) to be able to compare drug and non-drug
therapy and conduct multimodal trials.
AGRI-ENVIRONMENT
13. Replace EU rules with an integrated agri-environment framework which better
supports the development of more environmentally sustainable agriculture,
with more proportionate and evidence-based, outcomes-focussed regulation.
13.1. Promote a flexible, market based trading system for biodiversity offset credits.
13.2. Implement with urgency the data sharing provisions in the Agriculture Act
2020 to unlock data silos in agriculture and the environment.
13.3. Develop a comprehensive system of environmental metrics for sustainable
agriculture, incorporating the environmental impacts of a production system
from field to fork, to support clearer food labelling.
13.4. Develop a supportive regulatory environment to enable the development of
and increased use of agri-tech to promote sustainable agriculture.
13.5. Simplify compliance with environmental licensing and permitting
requirements, with the aim of moving from a mechanistic compliance-based
system toward outcome measurement.
13.6. Deliver a common-sense solution to transitioning chemical registrations from
EU to the UK REACH.
13.7. Introduce further exemptions to Annex XVII of UK REACH to allow the reuse
of products in support of the UKâs circular economy ambition.
123
13.8. Reform landfill surrender requirements to accelerate diversification away from
landfill.
13.9. Adopt a risk-based approach to waste regulation to drive greater re-use of
waste products.
13.10. Remove burdensome EU regulation on the animal feed industry, whilst
maintaining rigorous safety standards.
AGRICULTURAL GENOMICS
14. The UK Government should actively support research into and commercial
adoption by UK farmers and growers of gene edited crops, particularly those
which help the transition away from agrochemicals to naturally occurring
biological resilience.
14.1. Interpret current GM rules on a case-by-case basis, to permit specific crops
with proven benefits and which are consistent with the UKâs rigorous
standards on food safety and environmental protection.
SPACE AND SATELLITES
15. Through reform of the Space Industry Act, the Government should address the
indemnity and liability issues currently holding back investor confidence in the
UK as a satellite launch and operations hub.
15.1. Amend the Space Industry Act 2018 to cap liability and indemnity
requirements for licence applicants to launch and operate satellites from the
UK.
15.2. Ensure the Civil Aviation Authority has the expertise to fulfil its new and
additional responsibilities as a regulator for the space sector.
15.3. Develop an Earth Observation (EO) data regulatory policy framework.
NUTRACEUTICALS
16. Create a new regulatory framework for the fast-growing category of novel
health enhancing foods and supplements to promote investment in the UK as a
leader in the nutraceutical sector.
16.1. Establish clear regulatory standards and definitions for ânutraceutical products
and create a permissive environment for regulation of products with accepted
science outcomes, to form a new easier nutraceutical product regulation
pathway.
16.2. Encourage NIHR to gather data to support claims and enable research into
products medicinal and health properties, lead on international
standardisations and ensure a pathway to market, so that consumers are
aware of the health benefits and better able to make informed choices.
OTHER TARGETED REFORMS
17. Deliver other targeted regulatory reforms to reduce the regulatory burden on
124
businesses.
17.1. Amend the Weights and Measures Act 1985 to allow traders to use imperial
measurements without the equivalent metric measurement.
17.2. Develop an optional e-labelling system for devices with screens or that can be
connected to a screen, to display compliance information.
17.3. Repeal the Port Services Regulation 2019 (SI 2019 No. 575) to remove
unnecessary, EU-derived regulatory burdens on UK ports.
17.4. Liberalise parallel import laws to reduce prices and increase choice for
consumers.
17.5. Urgently review guidance on hand sanitisers so that tested, effective
non-alcohol based sanitisers can be used
June 19, 2021
Great list Sir JR and we can count on you to keep promoting it
June 19, 2021
Indeed but even this long list is only scratching the surface. Why do I have to submit enveloped dwelling tax forms every year when there is no tax due anyway and I already report the letting income every year with the normal comp. tax returns anyway? Why not just a box to tick on the existing tax return form. There are endless such time wasting insanities in employment laws, PAYE and tax regulations. These benefit no one other than the essentially parasitic lawyers, bureaucrats, accountants and compliance people. We want productive jobs not parasitic ones.
Planning applications just to repair and replace your windows in many areas for example.
June 19, 2021
Landlord. Hardly a byword for probity and scrupulous behaviour. âEssentiallyâ parasitic lawyers, thank goodness for them to protect the underdog especially against Landlords, rogue employers etc.
June 19, 2021
So much of what lawyers do does far more harm than good. They rarely generate wealth the just argue about ownership of it and cream of a percentage for themselves. In divorces, suing the NHS, employment matters and much else. Not always the lawyer fault but a poor legal system and appalling and often contradictory and vague judgements.
In my experience landlord’s are far better, more genuine and fairer people than the average person. This despite the government legal and tax system endlessly attacking them. Taxing them on âprofitsâ they have not even made (economic illiteracy from Osborne, Hammond and Sunak) and preventing them evicting tenants who are not paying rents for years for example. Thus encouraging non this payment of rents even when the tenant can afford them.
June 19, 2021
Also deterring would be landlords from supplying of rental property. Restricting supply and pushing market rents up for tenants. So good tenants suffer from this policy too.
June 19, 2021
@LL; “In my experience landlordâs are far better, more genuine and fairer people than the average person.”
Of course you will, given you have admitted to being a Landlord!
The only reason most Landlords are ‘reasonable people’, and many tenants might disagree even today, is because the sector has been highly regulated since the mid 1960s, before that ‘Rachmanism” was rife, Landlords of the time even admit so.
June 19, 2021
There is one bit of yours I actually agree with LL! ATED is a ” payment in advance procedure” as HMRC calls it. It goes with “payment on account procedure”. Both should be scrapped. A Taxable event should always be after the taxable event has actually occurred; NOT, assumed by HMRC, that you will repeat the same taxable event in the next tax year that you did in this tax year.
A Landlord holding property inside a Corporation Tax wrapper; as with an individual holding a Single Premium Investment Bond inside an Income Tax wrapper; should not be assumed to repeat the same encashment event in the following tax year.
June 19, 2021
@ Jerry – no the regulation in general make it worse for both landlords and tenants. For tenants it reduces supply and choice of available properties for rent and thus pushes up rents. The cost of compliance and the political risk costs of over regulation fall ultimately on to the tenants too.
I do have properties I rent out but it is not my main activity nor is not really a very profitable activity. But rental properties are needed and so are landlords. Not everyone wants to buy or is ready to buy.
June 19, 2021
@LL; As I said, you would believe that wouldn’t you – as a Landlord (how ever small your portfolio is), yours is hardly of independent judgement. Also quite frankly you do your argument not good implying that there was nothing wrong with âRachmanismâ style behaviour, getting tenants out by foul means (ripping off the roof tiles, putting a fire hose down the chimney flue and the like) that did not need regulating!
If there are to few suitable properties within the private rental sector then the sector is failing and thus the govt needs to intervene directly via either building more LA social housing or regulating the private sector more, if rental costs are to high again regulation is the solution not the problem, and yes both problems that might mean tax relief for the Landlord in response to proven investments/losses.
June 19, 2021
What a dreadful sneering post from you Jerry.
Implying Lifelogic has a similarity to Rachman who was a criminal a gangster and a property owner.
What is the matter with you?
Would you say these things to people’s faces in public?
I doubt you would be quite so aggressive.
You are just a keyboard warrior.
Shame on you.
June 19, 2021
I suppose that there would be few tax obligations if a landlord long leased property to a charity?
It might involve losing control of the property?
Just something that puzzles me.
Why would anyone do it and see their house/flat deteriorate etc?
June 19, 2021
@LL; “Planning applications just to repair and replace your windows in many areas for example.”
God forbid such planning laws are repealed, a pleasant but high maintenance bow-window replaced by a single pane of one-way mirrored glass anyone?!
June 19, 2021
He missed out planning, as far as I can see.
I wonder why?
June 19, 2021
Indeed. The most important one being self sufficient in electrical generation. We simply CANNOT allow the EU to blackmail us ever again on this issue, especially as our foolish negotiators linked it to fishing. How foolish is that. They should have NO access to our fishing grounds unless they’re giving us equivalent natural resources in return. Time to get off your Government’s and grow some courage.
June 19, 2021
Good sensible stuff but far more deregulation and tax cutting is still needed, cutting red tape make the economy more productive, more competitive and increases the tax take. Post Cop26 he needs to drop all this insanely pointless and hugely expensive green crap agenda. It will not even reduce atmospheric CO2 let alone do anything for climate.
The idiotic & misdirected government reaction to Grenville Tower is causing huge issues and massive distress to so many. With people having to pay ÂŁ100k per flat for simple work that should be costing ÂŁ10k tops per flat. Anyway the main cause of the deaths was the senior fire officers decisions to tell people to stay in or go back to their flats long after this made any sense and indeed the green crap that drove the cladding group think. Fire officers educated into appalling group think stupidity it seems.
The bye election landslide on Thursday seems to kill any early election plans, so the next election will, I assume be about 9th May 24. Less than three years off.
Alister Heath is surely as usual spot on:- âBeware, Boris. This is only the start of a southern revolt against your high-tax, eco-extreme agenda. The Toriesâ humiliating by-election defeat wonât be their last if they continue to take their core voters for granted.â
Not so much take them for granted but actively kick them (and indeed Labour voters too) in the teeth with the moronic waste of money that is the deluded Net Zero Carbon insanity, vast tax increases and the continued lockdown restrictions. Time for Boris to ditch the Carrie lunacy and go back to being a small government real Conservative and ditch the green crap now.
June 19, 2021
Lifelogic, Having friends nearby, I understand that the main dissatisfaction with the Tories in that area is HS2, and new build housing in rural villages and towns. Of course the extra housing is needed because of the excessive influx of migrants over the last 20 years. And HS2 is not needed at all.
June 19, 2021
Wait until these people start to realise that a heat pump system for a decent size house might cost them ÂŁ50k, it is hugely disruptive, needs new larger tepid radiators or under floor heating, requires digging up the garden as the heat source, a new better electric supply, is far less convenient and slow to hear up, cost more to run and maintain and does not even save any or any significant CO2 when properly considered. So why?
Same applies to electric cars – they do not save any CO2 after manufacture or car and battery and electricity production for charging is accounted for at all in general so why are we subsidising them?
June 19, 2021
I watched Rebecca Long-Bailey talking about the cladding crisis on GBnews. To my surprise she was cogent, knowledgeable and entirely right that leaseholders should not have to pay for the follies of green regulation. Of course the real culprits who imposed it will never be in the dock: the framers of regulations. A serious topic given serious consideration, and space for principled opposition to raise the tone of debate.
At the end, following the statement from the government spokesman, I was left thinking that if the government cannot solve a ÂŁ15bn insulation problem it certainly can’t deal with a ÂŁ2trillion cost for Net Zero insulation. Moreover, if it is expecting leaseholders to fund ÂŁ50,000 a flat for the cladding crisis, they are expecting the wider 30 million homes to stick another ÂŁ1.5trillion on their mortgages, doubling mortgage outstandings. It’s unsustainable.
June 19, 2021
Excellent post Mark.
June 19, 2021
Fabulous and zero chance in my mind that Ministers and their officials have the energy or ability to drive this through and we know it is far too much detail for the blusterer that is Alexander Johnson.
With Cummings off the scene precisely because he had the energy and didnât care whose toes he trod on there is no âenforcerâ and modernisation just another meaningless headline.
Now turn this into a project plan with by when dates, each coloured red or amber turning to green when completed and publish it monthly to show progress or not.
June 19, 2021
+1
June 19, 2021
You write of a âbetter regulated futureâ but then mostly seem to list rules to be abolished.
How about strengthening notoriously inadequate regulators in The City such as The Financial Conduct Authority?
So many get away with serious transgressions – fraud, bribery and corruption on a huge scale – I get the impression these ineffective bodies are there just to provide a fig leaf of respectability.
June 19, 2021
The FCA who moronically (when headed up by the current Gov. of the BoE) gave us one size fits all overdraft rates of 39.9% (and even 78% at one point with one major bank with its daily âfeeâ). Lend to the bank and they give you .o1% interest but borrow and they charge you 5% to 40% so up to 4,000 times more. If this is not a rigged anti-competitive market for overdrafts what on earth is? Where is the competition authority?
These obscene rates only in the UK too. The same UK banks overseas do not charge 39.9%! Just their UK customers get ripped in this way off it seems.
June 19, 2021
It is a way for them to repair balance sheets ravaged by excess mortgage lending leading up to the financial crisis, and to compensate for the low rates on mortgage lending required to avoid retriggering the crisis.
June 19, 2021
Peter, The more complex the tax code, or any other regulation, the more loopholes there are. Simpler regulation, with no exceptions, can be more rigorously and fairly enforced.
June 19, 2021
Indeed cut taxes to about 20% of what would then be a far higher GDP.
June 19, 2021
NickC,
See The Financial Times on The Royal Bank of Scotland 2005 to 2007 and the Financial Services Authority (as was).
Remember Fred the Shred?
June 20, 2021
Peter, Yes, I remember “Fred the Shred”. So what? I also remember that “Fred” was in and out of No.11 Downing St like the cuckoo in a Cuckoo Clock. It wasn’t the dearth of regulation which caused that debacle. It was the excess of regulations resulting in over-complication and loopholes, and the cronyism under Gordon Brown. Moreover the incompetence of the RBS board was not due to a lack of regulations either.
June 19, 2021
Nick, that’s always been my belief, yet the regulations get ever more complex, regardless of which Party is in Government. I would really like to read a rational defence of the current system!
June 19, 2021
There are useful ideas here. But the list is compromised by the obsession with net zero. That obsession will more than offset any benefits of other measures if/when they are implemented.
June 19, 2021
âLight touch financial regulationâ were the famous last words before it all hit the fan.
June 19, 2021
Peter, If I remember correctly Gordon Brown about doubled the length of the UK Tax code for businesses so that it is now about 12 times the length of the entire bible. Some “light touch” that.
June 19, 2021
What is the cost of millions of people having to read and try to comply with a tax code 12 times the size of the Bible?
June 19, 2021
Complexity and compliance costs are another huge tax this on top of the actual taxes (as is red tape in many other areas). The actual taxes being now at about a 70 year high in the UK. Despite politicians endless promises to reduce them or not increase them before each election in my lifetime. Yes despite this the quality of public services in the UK is generally appalling and deteriorating. Police have clearly given up on most real crimes, the NHS has a 5-10m operation or procedure waiting list, roads are dire, defence appallingly inefficient, energy and âclimateâ policy is insane, many schools and university degrees are a sick joke âŠ
June 19, 2021
I prefer a better, unregulated future.
The term regulation is simply code for further controls over what we do and how we do it. It is odd that a so called libertarian would in anyway approve of such a way forward
I have learned one thing since 1990. The British State has become a vested interest in its own right and therefore seeks a relationship based around compliance to its demands, or else
I see this list and think, what’s the agenda? Is it genuine liberalisation or is it nothing more than a recoding of regulations into further areas of activity while giving the appearance of liberalisation
I don’t trust the British State, its institutions, the unions-pro Labour controlled public sector, those who run them and those elected to oversee their activities.
Political and partisan parasitism is rife across all taxpayer funded State activity and the reform of such pernicious activity is again place into the bottom drawer as a Tory government cannot face up to a war with the McCluskey’s of this world
It is US against THEM and it’s been that way since 1997 so let’s drop the pretence that this government seeks to remove the dead hand of the State over our lives.
June 19, 2021
DOM, +1, another hard hitting and well targeted comment, which, by that definition, will be ignored by those still confused by Amersham.
June 19, 2021
+1
June 19, 2021
Indeed, Dom, I know what you mean about a “better unregulated future”. However we have to contend with those of an officious and authoritarian mindset who believe that nothing can be done unless some bureaucrat allows it and regulates it.
June 19, 2021
Agree – not better or amended regulation but less regulation
June 19, 2021
I agree with these proposals and in particular:
– The greater accountability aspect of reporting publicly.
– Also under the Transport heading, ’24.Reimpose road charge on foreign lorries using U.K roads to help domestic haulage’. For example, the A14 regularly has to be resurfaced because of the ‘gouges’ these extra HGV’s these create. I also sincerely hope this includes HGV’s using our country as a ‘land bridge’ to and from mainland Europe. The must be no exemptions, if there is all that will happen is that mainland European HGV’s will get registered in Eire. A facsimile of what happened when foreign fishing vessels were able to be registered in the UK.
June 19, 2021
Perhaps a charge per mile for lorries & maybe cars, with proper provision & staffing of of 24/7 rest points, parking and inclusive electricity recharging. That should discourage anti-social issues , discourage pollution and encourage or maximise miles driven by electrically or dual powered vehicles rather draconian prevention rules which for low use perfectly serviceable or emergency type vehicles cars makes little sense. Fossil fuel tax could then be decreased in tandem.
IR35- just combine NI ee’s and er’s & PAYE tax at a flat rate with tax free allowance say 35% or banded if needed. Close loopholes where earned income is turned into Capital Gains. Simple usually best. A minimum %tax level should be set where it exceeds the personal allowance.
Abolish the leasehold model. Its legal serfdom. Invoke a mandatory conversion to common-hold similar to Scotland. Yes lessons should be learned from Scotland! Now if our MP’s in the UK parliament (SNP) banged on about that i would not mind.
Outlaw the holding of property via offshore vehicles insisting they are brought onshore with full disclosures.
You might find the worst problems over bad landlords, bad law, bad regulation, fade away into the shadows.
Reduce the desire to make domestic property financial assets by dissallowing all interest from all tax deduction. Ensure such Freeholders have adequate capital ratios to manage there so called ‘long term guardianships’.
This is just another serial fail by the liblabcon parties.
Perhaps our MP’s have been busy and have furious schedule planned and ready to implement including some on your list. That would be a surprise.
June 19, 2021
Congratulations you are now a one man government. There is more this morning than the combined party manifestos at a GE.
I would agree with your tax suggestions but plea for a complete radical tax overhaul and rewrite.
I see no harm in the parts of all the rest that I understand, much I am totally unfamiliar with. Before you start you will need to get everyone in Government back at their desks and seats in the HoC. I would suggest the setting up of small task forces related to specific subjects to report in three months.
The message to all should be reduction in regulation, simplification in regulation, all designed to lubricate a newly freed enterpreneurial UK. We do not want a whole new industry arising to interpret the new dawn and feed off peoples lack of understanding. We have an excess of these already.
June 19, 2021
+10
June 19, 2021
I agree with these proposals and in particular:
– The greater accountability aspect of reporting publicly.
– Also under the Transport heading, ’24.Reimpose road charge on foreign lorries using U.K roads to help domestic haulage’. For example, the A14 regularly has to be resurfaced because of the ‘gouges’ these extra large HGV’s create. I also sincerely hope this includes HGV’s using our country as a ‘land bridge’ to and from mainland Europe. The must be no exemptions, if there is all that will happen is that mainland European HGV’s will get registered in Eire. A facsimile of what happened when foreign fishing vessels were able to be registered in the UK.
June 19, 2021
“Not based on the Precautionary Principle”?
I hope that you don’t do much driving, John.
I’d hate to meet you head on, with your overtaking in fog, because there was “no evidence that there was any oncoming traffic”.
We have stark evidence of what happens when people abandon this with regard to the safety of cladding for buildings, and in a more understandable instance are forced to use vaccines without full and extensive trials in an emergency. There is an endless historical list, including tragedies such as Aberfan.
Let us never go back to this.
June 19, 2021
MiC: The number of deadly tower blocks with combustible cladding similar to Grenfell Tower in the UK is est to be 208. We are still waiting for the Investigation arenât we? I read that the cladding was approved for use whilst we were in the EU based on the awarded EU classification? It is claimed this cladding is banned in America. I read that the British Class 0 was awarded to the panels based on the EU test classing this panel as B an equivalent to the UK 0 required. âDespite the warning to French sales staff a year before, UK sales manager (of the French Company) Vince Meakins said that he was never given equivalent instructions by his employers for the sale of PE to the UK market.â
âCladding was ripped from other towers in areas including Plymouth, Greater Manchester, Liverpool, Portsmouth and Sunderland.â The Sun. A âHigh School in Denbighshire was closed after the county council found cladding on the building was made by the same company who produced that used on the tower block in London…Cladding like that used on Grenfell Tower was also found at up to 30 NHS trusts…. Salford had already begun removing cladding, and nine towers to failed fire safety tests. They were built in the 1960s and were re-clad recently with shiny panels and insulation to cut energy bills.â
I wonder how many tower blocks and buildings over 10m in France this French company have supplied this cladding to that they sold in the UK as safe for insulation and modernising?
June 19, 2021
You whatever you do in such a way as to suit your prejudices.
The cladding was possibly approved for low-level building where fire escape and chimney effects would not be a problem, but even this is unclear given the appalling standard of the evidence and the falsification of test results.
June 19, 2021
Martin, The cladding was installed at the insistence of global warming zealots who use the “precautionary principle” to justify it. As you do.
June 19, 2021
No, it was installed mainly to improve the view for wealthy owners of expensive properties in the area.
June 19, 2021
Not according to the planning application:
June 20, 2021
Since when was a planning application generally ever a true reason rather than an excuse?
June 19, 2021
No Martin that is your prejudice!
June 20, 2021
Complete nonsense MiC
You seem to believe every bit of made up left wing propaganda you read.
June 19, 2021
We very rarely, almost never, get fog in Wokingham, but we do get clouds of dust and vehicle exhaust smoke in every direction north, south, east, west from the constant housing developments.
June 19, 2021
That is a ridiculous analogy MiC
You are desperately trying to conflate filling in unnecessary forms for some unnecessary regulation (see REACH regs) with someone quite obviously driving dangerously.
June 19, 2021
A good list. I’m sure I’m not the only one here to have declined the offer of a Smart meter – the biggest mis-direction of capital I can think of in recent years.
June 19, 2021
Not the only one. I am being harassed to have one. I resent it. I will not accept one.
Enormous waste of our money, but these Tories and ‘Boris’ in particular has no care for that. He loves big gestures and postures – he treats English voters as idiots.
June 19, 2021
The large accountancy firms are now huge players in consultancy and more recently lucrative government outsourcing contracts.
Yet they seem to operate as a clique who investigate any impropriety with a panel from their own large accountancy firms.
How about independent scrutiny and judgement in cases of impropriety by professional bodies?
June 19, 2021
@ Peter – regulation of the firms’ audit business occurs now: future plans (announced in 2019 and due for implementation by 2023) are shown @ https://www.gov.uk/government/news/audit-regime-in-the-uk-to-be-transformed-with-new-regulator
Regulating consultancy is more problematic as giving duff advice is not something that is easily controlled or prevented nor is it always clear that advice was flawed even if outcomes from adhering to it may be poor.
June 19, 2021
Formula57
Thanks for the link. Audit problems have often resulted in lame excuses for failure from those in the firing line.
As for consultancy there are more grey areas as you point out. However, consultancy and government outsourcing are huge and lucrative growth areas for these firms compared to bread and butter auditing.
NHS test and trace for example is an area where accountants are involved, as well as the usual suspects. You have to wonder why the work was allocated to certain providers who often seem to have little specialised skills to put them ahead of the rest of the pack.
June 19, 2021
I got the impression that the annex cited was drafted by a collection of management consultants. Large chunks are simply unintelligible. Full if more buzzwords than Martin Lukes.
June 19, 2021
JR, Well done. However, your “Energy” heading needs at least three more:
12a) Require each Wind energy business itself to provide despatchable electricity at all times under normal circumstances(ie: every Wind scheme must include its own back-up, and the costs thereof);
12b) Scrap the ban on natural gas boilers for homes and industry;
12c) Scrap the ban on petrol and diesel cars;
12d) Scrap all “green” energy subsidies.
June 19, 2021
NickC , +1. There are unreconstructed sensible conservatives out there, wonderful, if only they had more candidates to vote for.
June 19, 2021
b) c) d) more important than all the ones in the list.
June 19, 2021
+ more numbers I can add. What Johnson is proposing is downright stupidity, clad in lunacy, wrapped in total ignorance.
I wonder, if he is so confident this is the best way forward, will he ask the opinion, via a referendum, from the people who not only pay his pay his salary, but are expected to fund this?
Silly me , of course he won’t apply real democracy and therein lies the evidence he knows this will pauperise the ‘little people’.
June 19, 2021
Requiring 100% backup just for wind energy why? Would you apply that to other plant as well. The idea of a reserve for a specified period is good but should be done at a network level. A nuclear plant /coal plant have unplanned outages, do we have to double up needlessly above the maximum demand envisaged? The cost to achieve the grid stability should be shared via a levelling cross-charge dependant on the attributes known and unknowns experienced.Storage tech is maturing and some US state tenders do impose minimum output requirements.
Indeed some would argue all plant should be taxed for externalities e.g. pollution emitted, acid rain,closedown costs, spent fuel radiation costs and other disaster risks not fully priced by the market or government.
We should ensure the decision to arrive at the closure of existing plant is due to safety and not other pressures applied by the foreign controlled entities with a nod and a wink by a remainer establishment.
June 19, 2021
The difference is this. For dispatchable plant, maintenance can be scheduled to take place at convenient times of year when demand is lower. Outside of planned maintenance, the risks of breakdowns are relatively rare (at least until the plant is being operated without full maintenance because it is under the threat of closure), and largely random in timing, although there can be some heightened risk with plants running flat out, or having to do too much cycling of output. The random timing means that you are very unlikely to have lots of plants offline simultaneously on an unplanned basis (unless you have a system blackout!). You can count on say 85% of the total nominal capacity continuously, so you need capacity of 100/85ths of peak demand in a wholly dispatchable system.
For renewables, maintenance can often only take place in suitable weather. But much more importantly, wind and solar will be largely or completely out of action depending entirely on the weather or time of day. If you don’t have backup, then you have power cuts, and the backup you need is substantially all your peak demand, having allowed for the fact that rarely used plant may have trouble starting up – in addition to having substantial excess capacity from the renewables themselves. Peak outputs seem to be no more than about 75% of nominal capacity, and you need to have plenty of spare capacity for when winds are slighter. You end up with capacity overall that is a significant multiple of average or peak demand (average demand is about 60% of peak in the UK).
It’s worth noting that subsea interconnectors have not proved to be all that reliable. There are not infrequent trips, when the whole capacity of an interconnector drops out instantaneously. Sometimes these can be recovered quite quickly, but at others it can lead to outages that last weeks and months while they try to locate and repair cable faults. Over the past winter we have seen two lengthy outages on the BritNed interconnector, a month on IFA2, and a number of lengthy outages on the Western Link HVDC between Scotland and Deeside. In addition, there have been quite a few cable problems from offshore windfarms, sometimes knocking out entire farms for months – e.g. Rampion, off Brighton.
June 20, 2021
Anon said: “Requiring 100% backup just for wind energy why?”
Because Wind is intermittent by its very nature. Full back-up would prevent Wind operators de-stabilising the grid on a routine basis when the wind speed is too low or too high; and it would reveal the true cost of Wind as well.
Moreover the reason I said “under normal circumstances” was to cover normal operations, excluding breakdowns and maintenance. Both of which happen to windmills as well as any other plant anyway.
June 19, 2021
12a The owners of windmills should not be encouraged to install diesel generators. They should be contracted to supply the grid with a constant supply of electrical power, charged for their synchronised connection to the grid and charged for any shortfall against their contracted quota.
June 19, 2021
Scrap VAT and revert to a simple sakes tax.
Why should we pay VAT in labour charges etc.
That would do more to boost the economy than anything.
The constant addition of VAT at every step is an accountants dream and does nothing to boost the economy.
Council tax should be abolished in favour of a local sales tax then councils would have no incentive to block the high streets.
June 19, 2021
Agreed. VAT is a fraudsters paradise and requires an extreme amount of administration from both businesses and HMRC. What other tax can you get a cash refund before actually paying the tax? It could be made much safer from fraud by giving VAT credits, rather than actual cash. VAT rules are also extremely complicated and a complete minefield. Even accountants have to call in VAT specialists at times.
June 19, 2021
Agreed Ian, but I would scrap VAT out of principal as it is an eu invention.
We must scrub all evidence of eu in Britain
June 19, 2021
I would disagree with your advocacy of dual measurement systems. Forget the nostalgia element, duality can be dangerous.
Aviation works in feet and knots internationally. Limitations in height are expressed in feet above sea level. In Spain aircraft I fly have altimeters in meters and ASIs in KPH and variometers in MPS. Not very wise when you are using the same airspace as aircraft using the recognised international system and avoiding proximity situations. Add to this the Vultures and Raptors with no instrumentation and life can get too exciting.
Remember, it was I believe a measurement systems duality that led to one of NASAs disasters.
June 19, 2021
Perhaps the ICAO needs to tell the EU to get its regulation in line. Modern instrumentation can surely fix this easily in software.
June 19, 2021
It can Mark but on older aircraft it remains with the initial choice. All pilots need to prove that they can speak english to level 4, and they probably can. English is the official language in the air, however most in european general aviation tend to use their own language. My only comment is that in air to air comunication it is best to use one language only so that everyone is aware. Where I fly we have a great mix of Spanish, German, French and English. Keeps one awake.
June 19, 2021
Related to your point 3. about removing VAT from insulation and related items, I chanced to discover when investigating solar panel systems that there is some relief at present, providing for a reduced rate of VAT if conditions are met. This was not mentioned by most providers.
A VAT notice @ https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vat-on-energy-saving-materials-and-heating-equipment-notice-7086
states that: –
âThe installation of energy-saving materials in residential accommodation is reduced rated when any one of the social policy conditions is satisfied.
The first condition is that the supply of the installation is to a âqualifying personâ in the qualifying personâs sole or main residence. A qualifying person is defined in legislation as a person who is aged 60 or over, or is in receipt of one of the following benefitsâŠ..â
Once again and highly commendably, Government recognizes its solemn duty to keep baby boomers in clover, although not as well kept as if the rating were zero, obviously.
June 19, 2021
My comments regarding;
1/. VAT needs a compete rethink, why should a company not within the VAT threshold have to pay VAT on their B2B purchases but not a company over the threshold, yes I know allowances are given via tax returns etc but that is well into the future but cash flow is the present.
10/. Smart meters should be banned, not just made optional, and meter reading/inspection be mandatory each quarter, this is a safety issue, it is also a fraud prevention issue – those who want ‘real time’ monitoring of their consumption can still be provided with such a device. sans the automated meter reading.
11/. A Fallacy that free market competition creates lower prices.
12/. “Green gas” = biomethane = methane = Natural Gas (in effect). If CO2 is a problem then we need to move away from using any methane based fuels surely, if CO2 is not an issue and we are short of domestic NG then we either need to accept Fracking or find other means, a return to coal gas perhaps? Farmers should be growing food.
June 19, 2021
Not mentioned (or did i miss it amounts the many weasel words in the Annex document?);
The UK needs to review and perhaps (re)build non IP based, interconnected, control networks for our critical services and systems, to remove, or at least reduce the risk from IP based hacking. Closed systems are not 100% secure but are far more secure than a system connected to, and accessible from, a system that uses open IP based interconnects -and from open access to the core infrastructure. LLUB might have been good for the customer but has introduced security issues, manageable within the local exchange but perhaps not roadside cabinet etc.
June 19, 2021
Incorrect, Jerry. It is a fallacy that a monopoly creates lower prices. And a government monopoly is no different.
June 19, 2021
@NickC; “It is a fallacy that a monopoly creates lower prices.”
Total piffle on stilts, if you were correct there would be no need for Ofgem.
A not-for-profit regulated sale price will always be less than were a profit has to made (to by law reward shareholders for their investment), all other things being equal, such as the need to reinvest, the same wholesale price etc.
June 19, 2021
The role of OFGEM is to act in Green interests, ensuring they are subsidised. That was made law in Ed Miliband’s 2010 Energy Act. We would have much lower prices if we had the competitive markets that prevailed in earlier years with no subsidies for renwables.
June 19, 2021
@Mark; Whataboutism…
“Green interests” were not the ordinal role of Ofgem nor the two previous regulators (OFFER and Ofgas) that were combined to form Ofgem in 2000. Their original prime duty was price regulation, later removed from 2002, but reintroduced in 2018 (via default tariff caps).
June 19, 2021
Jerry, non-for-profit, ethical entities may well be more expensive because they pay their staff properly, ensure compliance with H&S and with environmental rules, and offer decent pension schemes.
I personally would gladly pay somewhat more for such a company’s products or services too.
June 20, 2021
@MiC; You are like @Petlet2, you both have a tendency to reply to comments you have not read (properly), what did you not understand when I said “all other things being equal”?
June 20, 2021
I read that, and whilst pedantically correct, I think that you countered the point that you tried to make by that.
June 19, 2021
You need to read some GCSE economics text books Jerry.
See the chapters on Monopolies v Perfect Competition.
June 19, 2021
@NickC; Anyway, who mentioned “a monopoly”, I didn’t. More proof that you and @Peter2 share posting styles, he also refuses to engage in actual debate, preferring to introduce Whataboutism…
June 19, 2021
Thanks for the mention Jerry.
You just keep on with your many pedantic contrary posts.
I’m sure all of us enjoy your endless arguments.
June 20, 2021
Jerry, The opposite of “free market competition” is a monopoly. Therefore you think that a monopoly delivers lower prices, since – in your opinion – it is “a fallacy that free market competition creates lower prices“. Maybe you don’t really know what you’re writing; or maybe your defence of Butskellism has reached the levels of desperation?
June 20, 2021
You are of course quite correct Nick.
Free fair competition brings innovation, choice and competitive prices.
Monopolies do not do these things.
June 21, 2021
@NickC; Nonsense, by your logic if regulated = monopoly, then unregulated = cartel…
“Regulated” these days tends to mean a maximum price, not the only price and certainly not only supplier.
If Ofcom were to regulated the cost of rural broadband, for example, they would the setting a maximum price, a price cap in other words, there would be nothing to stop a telecoms provider from selling their product cheaper. In fact, as I pointed out to @Mark above, Ofgem already do this with their “default tariff caps”.
June 19, 2021
Jerry,
1/. A company over the threshold pays VAT on sales a figure bigger than what they reclaim, a company under the VAT threshold doesnât pay VAT on their sales! Therefore has more profit and a competitive advantage already? If they want to reclaim VAT on purchases then they should register and pay VAT on sales. And I say this as someone that has set up several small businesses from scratch.
10/. I know someone that had a smart meter fitted and one day their neighbour came home and caught him lifting their fence panel and watering his garden from their outside tap! Now that is fraud, surely the water companies can check like for like homes on a street and just test anyone with more than a 5-10% difference in use age to detect fraud.
June 19, 2021
@a-tracy; Are you saying that a VAT registered bussiness not only collects the 20% (or other applicable rate) sales tax but also pays additional tax on the same sales transaction, both being paid to HMRC via their “output tax”?
June 19, 2021
Jerry, a VAT registered business charges VAT at the applicable % as instructed by HMRC on all sales that it applies to. The tax collected is paid to the HMRC usually quarterly, however, it is permissible under current HMRC regulations to offset VAT paid by the same business on the goods it purchases.
June 20, 2021
@a-tracy; As I originally said then….
June 20, 2021
I donât think you understand VAT, you asked why the companies the companies that werenât vat registered able to claim back VAT it is because you can ONLY claim back VAT from the VAT you have charged. Anyone that this bothers can register for vat charge it and reclaim it. However, most people who donât register enjoy the extra profit they make from not charging vat but keeping the full sales price, or the competitive advantage not charging vat gives them.
June 20, 2021
No, Jerry, not as you originally said. I can confirm that A-tracy is completely correct about the application of VAT, and you are wrong, because I was responsible for submitting VAT to HMRC for my own business.
June 21, 2021
@a-tracy; “However, most people who donât register enjoy the extra profit they make from not charging vat”.
Not in my experience of (working for and running a) non VAT registered businesses, our prices need to be cheaper as our -retail- customers know the invoice price is not inflated by 20% VAT.
“or the competitive advantage not charging vat gives them.”
What advantage?! Non VAT registered companies have to pay 20% more for our raw supplies etc. than our VAT registered competitors. Even if we do get a VAT off-set eventually it is ‘refunded’ by adjustments to our tax year liabilities, made via our tax return perhaps 12 months later – hence my comment about cash flow.
June 19, 2021
If the methane of decomposition is not burnt then it is a far more potent greenhouse gas than the CO2 that it produces.
June 19, 2021
@MiC; Oh dear, science is not your strong subject is it, but then you’re one of the generations of school leavers who have been taught what to think, not how to think…
Decomposition is a natural process of every living thing on earth, and has been since the start of life, the vast majority of such methane is not and never has been ‘burnt off’ [1], but only since 1995 (or there abouts) has anyone been fretting that the world is getting warmer – go figure!
[1] the most natural burning is wild fires, affecting living plants and animals, that actually release trapped CO2
June 19, 2021
I left grammar school in 1972, Jerry, where I studied all three sciences along with maths and further maths, before going on to engineering at UCL. I also did French, German and Latin which I have continued throughout life along with Italian.
I was referring to the methane produced by sewage plants, by slurry pits, and by man-made landfill sites, which is where biogas would arise were it not from purpose-built digesters and catchment systems.
As a part of reasoning, I was taught not to assume anything.
June 19, 2021
I have this vision of you MiC and Jerry locked in a room arguing endlessly for the rest of time pedantic political points.
Perhaps you could both go away and start your own little blog.
You both are posting 20 times a day.
June 20, 2021
@MiC; Well at least we now know why you put so much blind faith in loaded computer models rather than lesson from several billion years of nature and the natural world. I also simply do not believe you were a product of late 1960/70s education as you are totally clueless of the era, and what of UCL, I note you make no mention of grades…
“I was referring to the methane produced by sewage plants, by slurry pits, and by man-made landfill sites, which is where biogas would arise were it not from purpose-built digesters and catchment systems.”
Irrelevant if burning methane is also considered so bad, hence why the govt wants to stop the installation of NG boilers!
“As a part of reasoning, I was taught not to assume anything.”
If so, why have you stopped, all you ever do is push unproven green ideas/policies, often mechanically impossible solutions that appear to dream of some sort of frictionless/lossless perpetual motion solution.
June 20, 2021
You’re assuming, yet again, Jerry.
June 21, 2021
@MiC; What am I “assuming”?
June 19, 2021
Good morning.
All very nice and mostly achievable but, what I would like is, a substantial reduction in government. Fewer MP’s, Lords and Civil Serpents.
I also hear that the government is to give the likes of the SNP the ability to vote on English only matters. Is this true and, if so, for what reason ?
June 19, 2021
I agree Mark, I too would like to know why Gove is considering giving the SNP a say over English devolved matters that they sought independent decisions for themselves to make in Scotland and devolved this further from their MPs to a new set of people drawing income from the State in the form of MSPâs without getting rid of any MPs or Councillors to accommodate the extra layer of administration cost. If Gove bashes the English on this then there will be trouble ahead. Nicola is doing a fantastic job on her own to sew division and hatred.
June 19, 2021
I thought the SNP were already able to vote on English only matters. That is the very reason why people are calling for an English Parliament. Remember the West Lothian question?
June 19, 2021
@Shirley M; So the much celebrated EVEL is not fit for purpose then. So the law is not being changed, as no effective law (to stop non English MPs having the final say) has ever been passed?!
June 19, 2021
No reason. Just that ‘Boris’ likes appeasing the Scots and the Welsh to save the union, but of course this means the sacrifice of English identity in the process, but of course he has no care for England – Tories don’t. He does not even attempt to identify with us. And Sir John has obviously given in to pressure on this as has abandoned us.
June 19, 2021
Note the Scots do not have domestic leasehold. Why doesnt Boris appease the Scots by recognising and ensuring similar if not better law?
June 19, 2021
You referenced the financial problems that the residents of Grenefell Tower and similar blocks of flats are having. I remember that when Mrs May was Home Secretary that she said that she would personally take control of the whole issue. She dropped that like a hot potato didnât she. Somebody elseâs problem now and no sight of it being solved. Why not put her back in charge and make her responsible as she said she would.
June 19, 2021
Good idea David. I think it is pretty clear that if British regulators of material safety granted certificates for this panelling to be used in high rise buildings then it is for the British government and the taxpayers to sort this out because we failed to test properly, if it is the French company that gave the wrong classification for export of this product and didnât give the correct classification then we should the French if we were following the EU regulations on class B cladding and this was allowed in the EU for high rise buildings and the French didnât admit that the panelling was unsafe then one would consider their is a cross claim against their regulator.
In my opinion the fire brigade failed as well with their instruction to stay when everyone could see the fire was getting away from them hours before they moved on the decision to evacuate.
June 20, 2021
Also why, if these flats are less than 10 years old, doesnât the NHBC warranty cover the owners for replacement cladding? I thought thatâs what this insurance was for poor quality building materials?
June 19, 2021
@David Magauran; Your allegation against Mrs May, regarding promises about cladding (post Grenefell Tower) make no sense, how could May have promised anything ‘as Home Secretary’ when she had been the PM since mid July 2016, a whole 11 months before the Grenefell Tower fire…
June 19, 2021
This list is just the tip of the iceberg, and just shows how far the fingers of government have reached into our pockets as the years have passed.
How about starting with tax simplification, down to one A4 sheet of paper, which in the light of experience can be revised each year, but must never be greater than one sheet of A4 paper, with a type size no less than 15, and without any pages of explanation.
June 19, 2021
It is reported in the Daily Mail today that Border Farce vessels are turning off their transponders and communicating with their French partners via mobile phone rather than marine radio in order to conceal their people smuggling activities. Who is giving them their orders and who are those people working for?
June 19, 2021
Horrible to read.
June 19, 2021
You really do need to get to the bottom of this John, together with HS2, wanting to cover the Country with Buildings, and the Northern Ireland Farce, just to name a few, is it really any wonder you lost Chesham and Amersham.
June 19, 2021
Good to see some action on this front.
While I support the proposed changes to clinical trials regulation I suggest that rather prescribing new regulations to be adopted we should leave innovators free to suggest their own approach to problems.
June 19, 2021
From the above it appears to be a surface scratching report – hardly worth the effort. Get GB News to interview Sir JR
June 19, 2021
An excellent list Sir John and in a phrase ”Start governing our own country properly”.
June 19, 2021
At the moment we are living our lives under the burden of the most berserk regulations ever devised.
Get rid of them and bring back a cast iron, proper pandemic response.
Regulate against all that has happened in the past 15 months ever happening again!
June 19, 2021
Removing VAT on domestic fuel would conflict with the government’s policy of taxing fuel heavily to stop us using it to achive Net Zero. As an extension for their new-found opposition to HS2 and housing developments in middle-class areas the LibDems should commit to scrapping the future ban on petrol cars and gas boilers – they’d be swept to power.
June 19, 2021
Boris said he would rocket boost his election promises. The problem with manifestoes is that people donât agree with all commitments. Politicians seem to think that putting a promise in a manifesto means the voters actually want them to deliver on it. I was all in favour of getting Brexit done but Iâm totally against Net Zero based on todayâs technology. This flawed thinking will seriously come back to bite Boris at the next election.
June 19, 2021
Do we have an agreed definition of “BETTER” in reference to all of this?
WE all want something better, but what should that mean?
For a start we want only regulations that are absolutely necessary, specific, appropriate and fully achievable- and we want less far less of them.
Parliament should get away from the idea, partially imposed on it by the EU that they are there to regulate anything and everything — They are there to make life better for the people of the UK by formulating ideas that increase prosperity while enhancing the quality of life. — not by introducing laws to make us do as we are told, but by using inspiration, good communication and other means to stay in touch with voters to make our country a worthwhile place to live in.
Far too often PM’s have likened themselves to Kings, with ultimate power – They often forget where that permission came from and the purpose of them being crowned.
June 19, 2021
Mostly great ideas, thanks. I wonder about 2 of yours though:
15. We want the govt to buy the best products and services available at the price to get best value for taxpayers. I donât think a U.K.-only procurement will do this – it will encourage complacency, over-charging and poor quality. We see this in military procurement where for decades taxpayers have had terrible deal as govts have wanted to buy British when better systems were available internationally.
21. We should focus agricultural subsidies on maintenance of beautiful and accessible countryside and limited use of pesticides – which will be possible with GM crops, banned by the EU. We donât need self sufficiency in food we can rely on global imports. Even though the EU is cutting up rough at there have been none of the threatened shortages.
I will look through the ones from the committee also.
June 19, 2021
You are completely wrong on both counts.
1. Government procurement SHOULD be restricted to UK-based companies. Apart from the headline price, you also need to take into account the employment (both directly and in the supply chain), the tax revenues (personal and corporation), the subsequent export potential, the sustaining of the skills and technology and the future of the industry. As for your suggestion that military procurement problems have been caused by a preference for buying British, that is utter baloney. Just look at the problems with the army’s new Ajax armoured vehicles, which vibrate so much that the soldiers are sick and which cannot travel faster than 20mph. And which company makes these? General Dynamics, a US company. We should obviously have bought British from BAe!
2. Of course we need to increase our food self-sufficiency! Apart from the fact that British food is much, much better quality, the idea that we should be vulnerable to supply chain interruptions is ludicrous. Food security is a basic requirement for any self-respecting nation.
June 19, 2021
What you mean is you disagree.
If every govt took the nativist and protectionist approach you suggest IK companies would be unable to export.
Food self sufficiency is a post-war socialist nonsense.
June 19, 2021
O/T: sorry not to address Sir Johnâs beautiful sand castles in the air, but rather to ask questions all Covid-19 related:
– Whatâs this thing about AZD7442? Does that mean that the original vaccine AZD1222 is not as good as claimed? Will it be provided as a third jab in the autumn?
– Anybody following the state of Covid-19 infections in both the UK and Israel could start asking questions about the efficiency of AZ vs Pfizer/BioNTech?
– Indian/Delta variant: how comes that the UK now has it for 90% of its new infections, France and Germany (and other continental European countries) have it for 2 to 5% of their new infections? Does it have anything to do with the (rather flimsy) UK border policy?
June 19, 2021
Tsk, tsk, Hefner! Complaining about the “rather flimsy UK border policy” will get you called racist by our resident racism monitors Andy and Martin.
June 19, 2021
I have never called anyone a racist on this site and consistently considered Tory border controls to be very poor.
June 19, 2021
So how much of this better regulation would apply to that abandoned part of the UK, Northern Ireland?
June 19, 2021
I wonder whether either of those two self-proclaimed unionists Boris Johnson and Lord Frost would care to explain to these genuine unionist marchers in Northern Ireland:
https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/belfast-news/gallery/loyalists-march-newtownards-against-northern-20855378
that they too have a “duty” to do whatever is necessary to protect the integrity of the EU’s Single Market:
https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/0f2762db-c000-4443-bb78-65da4688884f?in=11:07:24&out=11:08:07
“… we accepted … the duty to control movements of some goods within the country to help protect the single market … ”
Even if that puts at risk the integrity of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
What do they think of the “PEACE OR PROTOCOL” choice presented on the leading banner?
This is only happening because Boris Johnson lied through his teeth to get the unionists to accept a plan they didn’t really want, a plan that both he and Theresa May previously said no Prime Minister would ever contemplate. Here he is telling that brazen lie to Sophy Ridge:
https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/find-you-courage-bbc-clip-of-johnson-promising-seamless-trade-between-gb-and-ni-goes-viral-274034/
“There is no question of there being checks on goods going NI to GB or GB to NI”
So what are the Tory, so-called “Conservative and Unionist”, MPs going to do about it?
Are they going to do nothing, until it boils over in Northern Ireland?
June 19, 2021
The TIGRR report is excellent.
How can itâs implementation be embedded so it doesnât just gather dust?
Can we have at least a commitment to an annual report on progress?
And if it isnât fully implemented in three years can we reduce MP and senior civil service pay by 10% each year until it is?
June 19, 2021
Can we also reclassify dredging spoils as a valuable national resource instead of the EUâs industrial waste? It should be spread over neighbouring farmland, not trucked to landfill
June 19, 2021
Just so, GilesB. Yet another stupid EU rule (Andy, take note!).
June 19, 2021
I thought, according to you lot, the EU banned dredging. Is that not so?
Anyway, I find your lists amusing. âBrexitists try to work out what Brexit is forâ would be a better title.
June 19, 2021
It is so Andy.
They did so by ruling all spoils from dredging are classed as hazardous wastes.
Thus increasing costs to impossible levels.
June 19, 2021
What, even that contaminated with radioactive waste as some channels are?
June 19, 2021
At the level of rads that you might get from a luminous watch.
June 19, 2021
JR
“I also support amending the Weights and Measures Act to decriminalise and authorise the use of imperial measures if people wish. ”
…..Good ! However you might realise most Englishmen simply ignore metric and carry on with life the imperial way. I take this opportunity to cite the fact that while some individuals were prosecuted by EU quisling courts for refusing to comply with French metric W & M….the French never prosecuted anyone for use of the imperial livre or it’s divisions. But then the French always do as they like without fear of prosecution because they make sure to corrupt the commission to their advantage.
I still control & monitor my fuel in Gallons, and convert most foodstuffs I buy into lb & Oz.
The French – corrupted EU Commission’s insistence on metrification was always to do with French Gaullist pomp, because France holds the Kg Standard, which incidentally has been innaccuracte for a number of decades due to oxidation, but they like to hide the fact.
Re your points on fishing, JR –
Suffice to say; fully agree but it isn’t goint to happen, not as long as we have a half – Belgian PM who is a a remainer. If you want to sort fishing out you have to get rid of Boris Johnson and all of his cohorts sharing the same treasonous, cowardly, anti – British ideology.
Very commendable ideas Mr Redwood but unfortunately we were conned with Johnson & May’s BRINO, and the country’s finished. We just carry on with life as best we can, awaiting the next general election when we shall unleash our wrath.
My advise to a distinguished and honourable gentleman such as yourself would be to get out while you can and stand as an independent or form a new party with trusted colleagues.
June 19, 2021
On weights and measures, I think it is disgraceful that the government itself prefers to use metric measures rather than British, imperial ones. Why does that idiot Johnson keep talking about “2 metres” when talking of social distacing? If he is going to push this policy he should at least use the correct measurement: it is SIX FEET.
June 19, 2021
Yes, if you wanted to disadvantage the whole of UK science, technology, and engineering at a global scale then we could revert to archaic measurements in these fields.
June 19, 2021
MiC
Listen up….This country led the world in engineering and science, all on the back of imperial measurements.
June 19, 2021
yep millions pop down and meet for a litre in their local pub.
June 19, 2021
The French donât use imperial measurements because they are not morons.
Those prosecuted under Englandâs weights and measures laws were not prosecuted for using imperial measurements. What they did wrong was to not also use metric.
I am in my late 40s and I was never taught imperial measurements at school. I donât think kids have been since. Why would they be? Imperial measurements are pointlessly complicated and an irrelevant throwback to the past. Ah, youâre a Brexitist. Figures.
June 19, 2021
Andy
“The French donât use imperial measurements because they are not morons.”
…..wrong, they do use imperial measurements….French ones. Principally the Livre, Sous & Denier
Are you wearing a wristwatch, Andy? It may delight you to know it’s size is governed by French imperial measurement, the Ligne.
“Those prosecuted under Englandâs weights and measures laws were not prosecuted for using imperial measurements. What they did wrong was to not also use metric.”
…….Wrong again. I actually come from a town connected with this, so I know the facts.
“I am in my late 40s and I was never taught imperial measurements at school. I donât think kids have been since. Why would they be? Imperial measurements are pointlessly complicated ”
….Interesting point. What you will find is that those fortunate enough to be educated and trained in engineering using imperial have no problem using metric. We also don’t have a problem with fractional measurement. The inverse is not true, because as you point out you find imperial complicated.
“Ah, youâre a Brexitist. Figures.”
…….Well done Sherlock. I’m also a C & G qualified Craftsman and Precision Instrument Maker. I think you should give the Weights & Measures a miss.
June 19, 2021
ask any child to open their arms to demonstrate a metre. Not a clue – even many like you – so called adults. Ask that child to demonstrate a foot – and a fair approximation will be shown.
June 19, 2021
Steve,
A long post but one that would chime with Private Eye’s ‘metric martyr’.
I don’t disagree with you but there are bigger fish to fry namely the NI protocol.
June 19, 2021
Peter
“I donât disagree with you but there are bigger fish to fry namely the NI protocol.”
Yes I agree Peter, however the only way NI is going to be rescued from May & Johnson’s treason is to remove the latter, rip up the WA & NIP, then tell the EU we’ll trade with them if they like. If they don’t like then they’re welcome to build a hard border between their territory and ours.
As for metric, well you know these woke-ists fail to understand imperial educated people handle both systems perfectly well, they only berate imperial because they’re usually not smart enough to understand it.
June 19, 2021
steve, The only things (that you do not appear to know) is that
– when a French person asks for a âlivreâ (translated in English as a pound) of something it means â500 grammesâ of that product, it is a âmetric livreâ;
– already from the 1890s, the kilogram had been defined by reference to a dm^3 of fresh water at standard atmospheric pressure (1013.25 hPa) and at maximum density, ie 4 deg C.
Since 2019 the kilogram has been defined via the Planck constant and cannot therefore oxidise anymore;
– from 1960 to 1983, the metre was defined related to the 606 nanometer spectral line of Krypton-86. Since then, it has been defined related to the speed of light in a vacuum.
So your references to the Kilogram and Metre as weight and length of bits of metal have been obsolete for at least 40 years, more likely 130 years.
Now so can you define what a foot and a pound are, without (obviously) relating then to metre or kilogram, and if you need to use other imperial units (like the yard), would you be kind enough to also define those.
As a footnote, I cannot help but remember the US Mars Climate Orbiter that crashed in September 1999 on Mars because some scientists had wanted to stick to imperial units.
Fortunately for humankind I do not think many people here on this blog so keen on imperial units are involved in things as interesting as space exploration.
June 19, 2021
Hefner
“So your references to the Kilogram and Metre as weight and length of bits of metal have been obsolete for at least 40 years, more likely 130 years. ”
So you don’t think that maybe the standard was redifined to cover up the fact that the original standards drifted out of accuracy ?
“already from the 1890s, the kilogram had been defined by reference to a dm^3 of fresh water at standard atmospheric pressure (1013.25 hPa) and at maximum density, ie 4 deg C. ”
I find this claim dubious to say the least. Based on the fact that in 1890….it seems unbelievable technology existed to measure pressure with a resolution of one hundredth of a millibar…sorry, hectopascal for you Europhiles. Aneroid technology clearly was’nt up to that kind of challenge due to combined hysteresis in moving parts – even with the best jewelled instruments. The best they really had was Hg Column.
“I cannot help but remember the US Mars Climate Orbiter that crashed in September 1999 on Mars because some scientists had wanted to stick to imperial units.”
Ah, Americans….my favourite people. Are you sure Hefner it was’nt the other way around ?
June 20, 2021
And your definitions for a foot and pound are �
June 19, 2021
Good to see those clowns in the EU Commission humiliated in court after their disgraceful hounding of AZ and lies and misinformation on its vaccine.
June 19, 2021
Which large technical and chemical corporations will want to supply the Evil Empire ever again?
Once bitten…
June 19, 2021
Which large technical and chemical corporations will want to supply the Evil Empire ever again?
Most of ’em. The EU rules mean we get less for more, and what we do get is watered down gnats. More profit you see.
June 19, 2021
The court ruled AZ had to deliver, set a deadline for them to deliver and a punitive penalty if AZ failed again. It clearly wasnât a complete win for either side – despite all the Brexit rage in January.
I appreciate your rage is now directly elsewhere – sausages for example – but Europe is doing really rather well with vaccines and its battle against Covid at the moment. How you getting on with your Indian Delta variant – or Brexit variant as I call it? After all it was allowed in when Johnson failed to close the borders with India because he wanted his Brexit trade deal with India – which will mean allowing more Indians to come to live and work here without visas.
June 19, 2021
Andy
“Indian Delta variant â or Brexit variant as I call it? After all it was allowed in when Johnson failed to close the borders ”
This is why we call it the Johnson variant.
“…allowing more Indians to come to live and work here without visas. ”
Do you have a problem with that ? we don’t. Unless your rage is now shifting from pensioners to people from India. I think you should be careful here.
June 19, 2021
It was a complete vindication for AZ. They are obliged to supply just a fraction of what they are already planning to do, and nothing close to the amount the EU tried to force them to do. The âpenaltyâ is âŹ10 per missed vaccine (but with the low target there wonât be any missed vaccines) not âŹ10 per vaccine per day as the EU claimed. The court ruled there is no obligation on AZ to use eg U.K. factories to prioritise the EU.
Your EU commission have made asses of themselves. Theyâve wasted public money. Most disgracefully of all they and other EU figures such as Macron have promoted anti-vaxx misinformation with their lies and smears on AZ. Itâs enough on its own to justify Brexit.
June 20, 2021
Andy, When I suggested closing the UK’s borders early last year, as Trump did on 2nd Feb 2020 for traffic from China, you frothed at the mouth and called me xenophobic. How times change!
June 19, 2021
It’s been 5 years since we voted to leave the EU and regain the freedom to regulate and run our country as we see fit, yet we are still talking about how we might do that. I expect that in 2031 nothing much will have changed and that there will be hopeful articles in the Telegraph about how smarter regulation could boost growth and pessimistic articles in the Guardian about how diverging from EU standards will lead to a race to the bottom….
June 19, 2021
I suspect by 2031 we will be involved in discussions about how to rejoin – your Brexit having demonstrably failed. By then itâll be 15 years since the referendum – and weâre losing about 250,000 mostly elderly Brexit voters a year whilst gaining significantly more rejoiners. It wonât even be close next time.
June 19, 2021
The Rejoin EU candidate got 101 votes in the Chesham & Amersham by-election. Just as well the OMRLP weren’t standing a candidate.
June 20, 2021
I suspect that by 2031 the younger generation will think the idea of rejoining a declining and irrelevant EU completely absurd, but that won’t stop the bleating of the euro-zealots.
June 19, 2021
What about getting rid of your Brexit red tape Mr Redwood? Itâs far more damaging than any thing you suggest.
I see today that as a result of your Brexit the Royal British Legion canât sell poppies to Europe.
Is this what you all voted for in 2016? Internal sausage bans, HGV driver shortages, rotting fruit and poppy ban? Turns out it was what you all voted for.
June 19, 2021
You keep writing the same old garbage, so I will just have to keep correcting you. None of these problems are due to Brexit itself, but are all due entirely to the EU’s *response* to Brexit. The EU could have given us much more favourable access, but decided instead to show us nothing but hatred and enmity. I do not wish to belong to a club where the other members all hate us. The EU’s actions prove that leaving the EU was the right thing to do.
June 19, 2021
Erm, no. You clearly do not understand how trade works. Free trade deals do not automatically eliminate non tariff barriers to trade. They simply reduce tariffs and quotas. How we trade with the EU now is how every other country with a bog standard trade deal trades not just with the EU but with every other country. Making an exception for you would open the EU up to complaints at the WTO that the UK is being treated more favourably than others.
Genuinely – youâd have thought after all this time you would at least try to understand the basics.
I think those of us in Chesham and Amersham gave you Tory extremists a pretty good idea of what we think of you.
June 19, 2021
Define non tariff barriers andy.
Come on.
With all your decades of international trading at management level.
PS
There havev been now over 100 polls all showing a 10 point lead.
Bigger than the lead that gave the Conservatives a huge 80 seat majority at the last general election.
June 19, 2021
+100
June 19, 2021
+1 X-Tory.
June 19, 2021
UK trade deal rollover – success;
UK new trade deals starting – success;
UK vaccine development – success;
UK vaccine rollout – success.
Shellfish exports to the EU – fail;
Fishing grounds given to the EU – fail;
Northern Ireland Protocol – fail;
NIP Art16 invoked by EU – fail;
Recognition by the EU of UK market integrity – fail.
Notice a pattern there, Andy?
June 19, 2021
I certainly notice that all of these problems stem from your brexit, and from your Government’s useless arrangements with the European Union.
What else is there to say?
June 19, 2021
You’ll think of something, usually several per day.
June 19, 2021
Andy
“I see today that as a result of your Brexit the Royal British Legion canât sell poppies to Europe.”
Does that bother you ? It does’nt bother us.
The EU isn’t grateful for our country liberating theirs from fascist tyranny, so why bother even trying to sell poppies there.
June 19, 2021
Change VAT with Sales Tax
Change Corporation Tax with Turnover Tax
Cancel Business Rates altogether
Stop and review all subsidies
June 19, 2021
What if you have a high turnover and no profit – many new businesses have this.They should pay tax on turnover? Sounds like a recipe for stagnation. Who would invest?
June 19, 2021
Nigel Lawson ran the numbers and he concluded that with a high threshold, and all the international & internet companies paying their whack most SMEs wouldnât pay anything and the rest no more than the old systemâŠ.and you canât hide in your accounts
June 19, 2021
Agreed. Also many established businesses have higher costs than others, dependent upon trade/profession and location although HMRC have a benchmark for each.
June 19, 2021
“Might I interest you in a Barleycorn of snow ma G? Me blood is but a furlong thither, and, having control over some 2 roods, will furnish you with all you need be it a bushel a gill or a whole slug ”
Oh this is going to be good. …
I am not sure why the self employed should contribute even les than they do already . Years of being told what mugs we are paying tax at all, and the second they are in trouble, we all have to bail, them out, (often while they are working ) . Has anyone costed this give away, its not joke VAT you know , its ÂŁ130 billion pa , sticking it on the card are we?
. Restore a common law principles based approach to financial services regulation ”
I like this , all that consumer protection rubbish is a pain, lets bring ” So sue me !” back into the Buildings Society environment. Are we getting rid of the cooling off period, or retaining it only for Governments who sign protocols and claim they are too dim to know what they signed ?
June 19, 2021
As a matter of interest, if you are self employed and either cannot work (illness) or work dries up – the help you get from the state is what we in the trade call f**k all.
June 19, 2021
I have a start-up in business daughter who only had small income for the year before pandemic, but lots of costs. Some of those costs continued throughout. Zero income for the year, but tells me she finally got ÂŁ400 (aid of some sort). As you can imagine her and husband will not be voting Conservative. Thanks Rishi.
June 19, 2021
pretty much the same as employee and with the higher tax to boot.
June 19, 2021
MW
+1
……pretty much the same also if you were not self employed. There does’nt seem to be any sense of fair play, anywhere these days especially from the state. Oh wait a moment…..I forgot about the dinghy people that Boris let’s France send over.
June 19, 2021
There is a misunderstanding of how taxation works in a fiat currency economy. Value Added Taxation is the brake pedal on any over spending in the economy that is producing inflation in particular sectors. It is the most effective tool currently available for FISCAL management of the economy.
It is far more effective than Central Bank MONETARY management. The latter using sledgehammer, indiscriminating, slow acting, policy interest rate changes. One of the primary flaws of the latter is that the central bank jacking up interest rates, jacks up the interest payment income to the very Households who’s spending it is trying to decrease.
The last thing a competent government should do is raise the VAT threshold. The VAT threshold should be reduced to zero. Modern computing accounting packages make input/output VAT simple; even for a one man band. Currently, a zero VAT registration level on ALL goods and services at a level of 8 – 9 % would be budget neutral. If you are bothered about the cost of “Tampons” going up, that can be easily compensated where necessary by the DWP benefit machine.
The beauty of a zero VAT registration threshold is it is difficult to hide your gross income from the tax man, regardless of IR35 tax dodgers; and, Householders who want a cash deal and will eventually join you in Court for VAT evasion. Governments will finally make cash notes and coins illegal currency; all transaction payments will be purely digitally and recorded for HMRC benefit.
June 19, 2021
Excellent piece. This shows how a real MP thinks and spends their time researching and understanding in depth the UK and its laws.
Can we imagine an Angela Rayner or Emily Thornberry showing this depth of understanding – or, who’s the one that’s spending time moonlighting as a locum pharmacist at Tesco? She really has nothing better to do in the role of MP?
Keep up the good work, sir. Somehow the right of the Conservative party needs to get itself in the ascendancy.
June 19, 2021
3. Amend the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) and the Enterprise
Investment Scheme (EIS) to maximise Private Equity and Venture Capital
investment in growth industries.
I’ve recently been looking into SEIS. The tax offset is very generous if you have nothing to do with the business. So my groundworker pal, who’s paying ÂŁ100k CGT on the sale of a long-term investment in land could invest, but won’t because he knows nothing at all about medical devices, engineering and probably even less about Venture Capital. He’ll look for more land or a property investment because he gets that.
Meanwhile I have “knowledge” of this investment, but am too closely connected with the company to be able to use SEIS or EIS. Why not change the rules to let “experts” in start-ups use some of the tax paid in previous company sales (a couple of years beyond their non-compete) to invest in a SEIS or EIS?
June 19, 2021
Business rates are iniquitous. We can both “level up” and solve the online tax issue by getting rid of business rates completely. Then tax profit on overseas earnings for small companies more lightly than UK earnings. It costs more to develop exports.
June 19, 2021
A lot of very sensible ideas there, both from yourself and the official report. In particular I would like to endorse your proposals on energy (11 and 12): we need to *immediately* order 20 Rolls Royce Small Modular Reactors, and also legislate for the mass-adoption of the new, ground-breaking solar cells produced by the British company Power Roll (see here: https://inews.co.uk/news/environment/new-superthin-solar-film-could-playkey-role-making-uk-carbon-neutral-1046595). On business, your proposals 15 and 16 are crucial; your proposals on fishing are, frankly, the very minimum the government should be doing to try to seek redemption for their betrayal of our fishermen; on farming I would ADD to your proposals 21 and 22 by urging the promotion of indoor, vertical farming; and on transport I would ADD to your excellent proposal 24 by *legislating* to force more cross-channel trade to be ‘trailer-only’ – ie. the goods are transported but not the driver (or his cab). This would reduce the number of foreign drivers (and cabs) in the UK (helping with safety here) and the number of UK drivers in the EU, meaning that they are not away on long journeys. This would not only improve their quality of life but more importantly would increase the availability of drivers in the UK.
As to the official report’s recommendations, I applaud them all, but weep at the realisation that our moronic government will do none of this – after all, the government has yet to approve SPACs, despite the recommendation to do so and their success in luring British companies to list in New York rather than London! In particular I pray the government will act upon the recommendations related to clinical trials (section 11), agricultural genomics (setion 14) and space and satellites (section 15). I would also ADD a very important recommendation to the list at section 13: the requirement for ALL food sold to the public to be very clearly labelled with the COUNTRY OF ORIGIN (not packaging), so that consumers can buy home-grown food.
HOWEVER, I’m very sorry but there is one suggestion of *yours* that I have to strongly DISAGREE with: your proposal number 6 to eliminate the digital tax. This needs to be changed, but not abolished, so that digital companies are taxed on the basis of the country where their customers or users are located. At the moment companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc avoid paying taxes in the UK by claiming sales are made where they are processed (Ireland, Luxembourg, Holland, etc), but this just cheats the UK exchequer – and hence every one of us – of taxes which should be paid here. We should also BAN intra-company payments (such as royalties or payments for goods/services) being used to reduce taxes here. And NO, we should NOT “await G7 or OECD agreement” – I’m sorry, but what part of “Take Back Control” do you have difficulty understanding? We do not need to get agreement from foreigners before we act at home.
June 19, 2021
A long list of recommendations plus your own additions Sir John but at present only recommendations.
The level playing field, the Northern Ireland protocol and the withdrawal agreement will all prevent all but the most insignificant of these measures to be pursued. And let us not forget our own civil service who do love a regulation or two.
Good luck……….
June 19, 2021
Indeed. Far too many to comment on meaningfully in one blog. I hope we get to have a more focused discussion on the various areas in due course. But also it is an indication of just how far reaching EU regulation has been, and how much work needs to be done to sort it out.
June 19, 2021
Oh and IR35 needs more than “no further changes” although it is true that HMT/HMRC keep adjusting it until they catch the people they wanted to catch, while leaving others alone. Draconian behaviour for a UK govt dept.
But the key is to remove Employers NI. Perhaps the largest businesses might pay something like that, especially if they are profit-shifting .
But imagine there’s no ER NI. Now all these artifical “employment statuses” are paying more or less the same taxes, so the need for such distinctions wanes. Also, there’s no tax hit for employing a British-based worke any more and no disincentive to expanding a UK small business.
There is actually no upside to ER NI. The only justification the govt/HMT has ever given for its continued existence is that they get too much of their revenue from it!!! Which is no justification at all.
June 19, 2021
Sir John – There is nothing there that anyone couldn’t agree with.
I would add that there should be a separation between a tiresome burdensome over bureaucratic regulation and a simple law of compliance.
We need to stop creating jobs for ‘the boys’ that are costly for everyone – industry then the consumer.
The so-called regulators will always identify an incidence that justifies their existence, but against the cost burden is their position tenable. In this age of the virus, we have chosen to overrule proper due diligence and formal procedures just to get it out there. The but, is no one knows the long term consequences they are just guesses. Expediency and need become the override – shouldn’t the same balance be applied elsewhere. Cost of Regulation to everyone against the cost of its purpose.
June 19, 2021
@nota#
I am saying this in relationship to an industry I am involved in. A few years back new costly regulations were brought in by Government. These regulations did nothing other than confirm the practices and standards that had been carried out over the previous 20years or more. What it did do was create an administrative burden on businesses that were not involved in the compliance or creation of the standards (if you bought from a supplier a product that was deemed to comply, and already tested to comply, you then had to pay to prove that the suppliers product met those standards). I kid you not, that’s Government Regulation. The middle man loves it, the consumer pays over the odds for all this ‘red tape’ and gets the same quality and performance as before.
June 19, 2021
9a Take VAT off products for disabled, and face masks.
June 19, 2021
The title ought to been an aim for a LESS regulated future. Of course ‘better’ is a non-controversial word and has the benefit of ensuring a foot is on each sides of the fence should there be challenges.
June 19, 2021
Good point prangwizard.
June 19, 2021
Every UK Company is required to take these actions (and charge their consumers for the privilege)- Why
Training and Awareness
We provide our staff with training on our modern slavery obligations and reiterate the importance of our Supplier Business Code of Conduct. We take our modern slavery obligations very seriously and will continue to monitor compliance on an on-going basis. We have appointed an independent third party to evaluate our risk, reviewing our training programmes, policies and procedures and make recommendations for further improvements.
But isn’t that just costly ‘virtue signalling’
June 19, 2021
@nota# – the above patronising and insulting ‘ Training and Awareness’ Statement is a UK Government regulation that has to be stated by law otherwise the Government believes a business must be involved in modern slavery.
It an up hill battle Sir John, someone in a Government department has created employment for themselves when they came up with this requirement. – there must be 100s more illustrations of the meaningless, that creates costs and diversions to those that create the Countries wealth.
June 19, 2021
The Lib Dem victory in Chesham has people saying that the governmentâs planning policy (cover the South East with new rabbit hutches) was one of the principal reasons.
Mr. Redwood, perhaps the long suffering voters of Wokingham will boot you out at the next election as a thank you for the thousands of new houses nobody wanted built in Wokingham.
June 19, 2021
Government edict on Councils and their Planning are to blame. I think I’m correct in believing Sir John is not in favour of the extensive speculative house building going on, and will carry on for 10 years.
June 19, 2021
There’s a good deal of nimbyism at work in Bucks, and a bit of wealthy smugness as well: property owners want to maintain the status quo so as to sell their own houses more expensively. Nor do they want newcomers.
Rail links are improved, and those drawn to live in the area will definitely need houses: but as they’ve not yet been built, the future residents don’t yet have a vote, hence the result.
I hope the voters know that – whatever their new MP has said, LibDem policy is to build HS2 and to cover the South East with new rabbit hutches. And to support Labour and the SNP and the Greens in attempting to defeat the government. Buyer’s remorse will soon set in.
June 19, 2021
We need a Department for Deregulation whose job is to challenge existing and planned regulations, and at least annual passage of deregulation measures perhaps as part of the Finance Act. External challenge is essential to making it work.
June 19, 2021
Too many issues to comment in much detail, so I will confine myself to energy/net zero.
Our regulation in this area has become torturous to the point where if is difficult for the layman to understand the many ways in which markets are distorted, implicitly taxed and subsidised. Unwinding it will be difficult, with guarantees on subsidies built into legislation.
Even more complex are the proposals for attempting to implement net zero. The Chancellor is unable to say what it might cost, or how it might be financed, while it is plain that the sums are so gargantuan that they risk the stability of sterling and the ability of government to borrow at all, as Andrew Neil, Portillo and Halligan broadly hinted. Every time the CCC and BEIS get challenged over their plans we see either denial, or the bolting on of yet more expensive baubles to try to pretend that the show can continue. Very expensive green hydrogen is the new poster boy.
Now we have the CCC effectively admitting that their plans are unworkable, and telling us we are faced with extensive and regular blackouts. It really is time to call a halt to this folly. If we as a rich nation can’t afford it, who else will? We must instead simply keep our powder dry, and handle the climate as it changes by adapting, and in the mean time ensuring that the economy prospers so we can afford to do what is needed.
June 19, 2021
Political thinking with Nick Robinson BBC radio 4 17:30 today with the president of COP26 the Tory MP Alok SharmaâŠ..it was an out and out interview with a member of the fully fledged green party
June 19, 2021
All good stuff Sir John.
In the present climate where are we going to find the politicians with the knowledge, beliefs, experience and guts to ring the changes and re educate the civil service to implement them.?
With kipper Johnson and his fillets in charge we have more chance of walking on water.
June 19, 2021
These suggestions are so sensible and comprehensive that they make me bitterly regret JR is not our Chancellor.
June 20, 2021
They are so sensible that this government will never adopt them