The OBR forecasts yesterday do not show a sufficiently sustained investment boost from the private sector. They also show a continuing high balance of payments deficit. The forecasts may be too pessimistic, but it does highlight an opportunity which the government could grasp.
The Chancellor rightly wants to lead a big investment revival. He is also making large sums available in public sector capital, and hybrid capital through joint financings. There are obvious opportunities in putting in more electricity capacity to cut our use of the interconnectors, substituting U.K. timber for imports for many uses, growing and catching more of our food and ensuring our defence orders are supplied from U.K. yards and factories. These are all areas where government intervenes and spends a lot giving it  influence.
March 4, 2021
One of my wishes for us leaving the EU was that we might become more self sufficient as a country.
This opportunity seems to have been lost as a concept.
March 4, 2021
Import substitution and self sufficiency have great appeal.
I am not sure how much the government can push this though. They could cripple foreign competition with unwritten barriers to entry, but they seem unwilling to even match the EU with such measures.
March 4, 2021
Narrow Shoulders, Don’t expect us to become more self sufficient in electricity production. The governments paper “Updated energy and emissions projections 2019” can be seen at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/updated-energy-and-emissions-projections-2019
This shows (p29) that net imports of electricity will approximately triple by 2040 (cf 2020). This confirms what I have previously observed – that the government simply isn’t building the electricity generation capacity that even they project (and they under-project anyway).
March 4, 2021
Is increasing corporation tax the best way to attract investment.
The big tech companies won’t pay it just the little men
I don’t see anything that grasps the Brexit benefits.
March 4, 2021
Agreed and with ROI next door with corporation tax at 12.5% why wouldn’t any international corporation transfer their profits out of the UK. We constantly hear moaning about Amazon, Google, Apple etc not paying taxes here, with corporation tax to be at 25% it will only get worse…
What planet is the Chancellor on?
March 4, 2021
Ian,
Corp tax is delayed it might not be needed by then and be used as a focal point to win votes if election date is changed.
Govt. Build Back Better 108 page doc sneaked out yesterday by the govt. you know the WEF socialist ideology for a new left wing corporate global world.
No longer can the Fake Tories be trusted with any form of national economics. Ten years have evidenced this. Despite the whopping dishonest lie by Sunak his budget was possible because of what his party has done over ten years. A complete lie. Never did his party fulfil its repeated promises of balanced structural deficit by 2015, 2017, 2019, 2020 then abandoned last year when he gave the budget! He needs to apologise for a deliberate lie, not being straight, levelling or honest as he falsely claimed.
Conservative financial orthodoxy has gone with these fake left wing Tories. It is not a party of financial prudence ,personal responsibilities and freedoms. Reckless tax, spend and piss down the drain as LL would say. The shift of left wing culturally Marxist values are in accord with what Dom repeatedly says.
McDonnellâs national bank policy stolen by Sunak yesterday! Proven failed green whacko ideas being launched. Germany has already found these so called green technologies transport jobs to China not the countries where green job creation is promised!
March 4, 2021
With ÂŁ250,000 remaining at 19%, the little men won’t be paying the corporation tax increase. Multi-nationals won’t be paying it either, because 25% of nothing is the same as 19% of nothing if you declare all your profits off-shore.
The only companies that will be paying it will be large UK based, and how many of them will start looking at their structure to see if they can off-shore their profits as well?
March 4, 2021
Sorry, that should read ÂŁ50,000 at 19% with a sliding scale up to ÂŁ250,000.
March 4, 2021
The tax changes yesterday made no attempt to move towards the current ways of working just using the same but increased levers from yesteryear.
To capture more tax the rates need to be lower but spread over different activities
March 4, 2021
We don’t need more social engineering by politicians, we need the removal of their social engineering which forced British jobs abroad previously. Layers and layers and more layers of social engineering is not going to produce success. we need the politicians to get out of the way and let the real innovators do their thing. Our wealth creation is being strangled.
March 4, 2021
You are so ‘spot on’ with your comments
March 4, 2021
+1 Liain. However you will be deluding yourself if you think the Fake Tories are going to change direction. JR and. few others will disappear with age and are an irrelevance to the current party they belong. They only act as a cover or excuse of conservatism for Johnson and his cabinet to hide behind or defend themselves.
March 4, 2021
Iain – how true!
March 4, 2021
Like forcing us to use electric cars which I suspect is doomed to fail.
March 4, 2021
+1
March 4, 2021
Ah, back to the WWII days of “ersatz” products.
Your brexit just keeps on giving.
March 4, 2021
No, not ersatz. UK products are usually better quality than much we import. Just want to do what they do in the EU, buy their own stuff first. Presumably you would agree to that as the Continentals do it which seems to be most influential in your thinking – everything EU good, everything UK bad.
March 4, 2021
It would be difficult for UK manufacturers to produce poorer quality products than those dumped in UK by China. The point in this article is about home production not import. You have a problem with that?
Would you prefer foreign coal, steel and dropping Welsh initiatives in high-tech, aerospace, energy transfer, marine…?
March 4, 2021
5 of 10 large ship container cranes ÂŁ400m arrived today at the Liverpool docks (Freeport) from China â these could have been manufactured in UK but thereâs no way we can compete with the slave labour rates in China
March 4, 2021
UK made products tend to be better quality – but more expensive hence the off shoring to reduce costs (and quality).
March 4, 2021
The imports being discussed are those from the European Union.
I’ll stick with Burgundy from France and Gorgonzola from Italy, thanks.
If the UK can make iPhones competitively, and with decent terms for those making them, then I’ll applaud that, however.
March 4, 2021
Indeed, Brexit does keep on giving, Martin. Giving us riveting examples of how truculent and petty the EU can be. Though I see that the EU empire sub-states have now decided that the Oxford vaccine is not so ersatz after all.
March 4, 2021
Yes, talk about having egg on their faces. I don’t believe they had reservations over the efficacy of the Astrazenica jab. It was the fact it was from the UK and we used it first.
March 4, 2021
Comparatively minor investment in the low-speed wing project during the ’70s enabled British wings to dominate civil aviation. The same focus on engine technology could do the same for engine technology: fund Reaction Engines Ltd.
Infrastructure projects are worthwhile only if they are useful: abandon HS2, build a north/south water grid.
This morning the UK is dependent on imported energy from the EU, not a sustainable situation. Institute a massively generous compensation scheme for those adversely affected and subsidise fracking development while extending the gas grid – space heating is a major source of CO2 – while encouraging development of CNG vehicles.
Use CCGT power to hold the fort, keeping the Grid alive and the lights on while ordering a batch of SMRs from the Rolls Royce/Finnish consortium.
Sell it as the 3 Grids update.
JF
March 4, 2021
Drax has just cancelled their planned large CCGT because the renewable subsidies and inefficient following of wind output makes gas uneconomic. And of course, they make much more from the subsidies to burn American trees.
March 4, 2021
Julian, Good suggestions. And of course CCGT, using fracked natural gas, is the cheapest clean way of generating electricity – not least because it requires no major back up.
However, the government’s paper (âUpdated energy and emissions projections 2019â – see link above) makes it clear that 2040 final demand electricity will only be marginally above what it is today, at about 40Mtoe.
That means the government thinks we won’t need much more electricity despite most cars expected to be battery electric by that date, and all new homes for the previous 20 years heated by electricity. Hilarious; if it wasn’t so unutterably stupid.
March 5, 2021
My error: “all new homes for the previous 15 years heated by electricity” – new homes are to be built without gas heating from 2025, not 2020. The lack of extra electricity generation to match the government’s policies remains hilarious.
March 4, 2021
Well perhaps they are indeed over pessimistic. But then this government are strangling the private sector in so very many ways:- the net zero lunacy, expensive energy, the attacks on non electric cares, endless reams or more red tape, making tax digital, this appalling tax increasing budget, restrictive planning laws, a second health service, poor schools, the problems with Northern Ireland from the EU, vast waste in the bloated and largely inept government, the lockdown, the failure to get the vaccine priority right (which could have brought lock down forwards 2-3 weeks), all those loans (often ending up as grants) for mainly useless degrees, HS2, the attacks on the gig economy ……..
March 4, 2021
And now we are in control of our destiny not Brussels. We are free of the relentless mission-creep that has dogged this country for years whereby the EU was slowly driving our industry and farming down, in order to prop up the southern states of Europe.
A significant benefit from Brexit and before all you ardent remainers scream fishing, export red tape and Northern Ireland, that will be sorted out shortly.
March 4, 2021
The people have moved on and grasped brexit but our politicians havenât, theyâre like little bunny rabbits stuck in the middle of the road with headlights in their eyes still awaiting instructions from the EU
March 4, 2021
I love the “we”, said with not even a hint of irony.
Who, exactly, might this “we” be?
I think that a car worker in Sunderland has far more in common with his peer in Dusseldorf than he ever will with those presently in government, but they managed to fool him otherwise, much to his disadvantage.
March 4, 2021
Martin, “We” is used in different senses, and very often on here because it’s a shorter way of saying “the UK”, or “the people of the UK”, or “the exporters of the UK”, etc. Don’t forget that even if you voted Remain, you are just as much out of the EU (not fully out, I agree) as I am, so “we” is accurate even if you feel uncomfortable about it.
And just a tip here, Martin. Very few people were “fooled” on the Leave side, that’s just Remain propaganda because they (you) didn’t like the result. My experience of leafleting was the Leave voters were much more highly motivated than the Remain voters.
March 4, 2021
There is a friend of mine who works in this excellent car factory Martin.
She sees Dusseldorf as a direct competitor.
March 4, 2021
Bless.
It will be sorted out when we rejoin the EU. Which one day we will.
March 4, 2021
Your recent comment about the ‘awful’ ’70s, Andy. (Even though you weren’t really there.)
An ordinary man could afford to house and feed his family without his wife going to work.
50 years later our children will be forced to live in pods and eat bugs and most of that ‘progress’ was made whilst in the EU.
March 4, 2021
Bless you. You are so touchingly naive. Wrong about everything, including us ever rejoining the EU. They will NEVER have us back. Praise the Lord.
March 4, 2021
Is that because you still think we’re not capable of governing ourselves, Andy? Why would we (the people of the UK) give up our independence for . . . . well . . . . nothing?
March 4, 2021
Keep your dreams going Andyif it pleases you..
Last polls see Greens and Lib Dems in single figures and Labour who don’t want to rejoin in second place 9 point behind the Conservatives.
March 4, 2021
Red tape won’t be sorted out any time soon (fish will be, we’ve no market to sell to any more) – leave the EU, you get red tape, you get trade barriers. You voted for it! Now you going to have to live with it
March 4, 2021
You get disguised restrictions on international trade, contrary to the WTO treaties to which the EU is a party.
March 4, 2021
Grey, The entire UK had to conform to the EU’s red tape when we were a member. If the UK failed to obey EU rules we were taken to (the EU’s) court. What is the matter with you? Now only our exporters to the EU have to conform. Which, as you observe, isn’t good. But at least it’s about 9 times better than when were in the EU (ratio of domestic plus RoW UK GDP, to UK GDP from exports to the EU).
March 5, 2021
And now Boris wants to do away with red tape over Northern Ireland for 6months the EU threatens to take us to the ECJ. Hilarious. As if we care about that.
March 4, 2021
George,
âAnd now we are in control of our destiny not Brussels. â
I wish I shared your confidence. It does not seem that way to me though. The government lacks either the strength or conviction to take control. It contrives to play down bad news or offer words not actions in response. It is reactive rather than innovative.
There was an article by Andrew Montford in âConservative Womanâ 2nd March. It was titled âWhy Iâll never vote Tory againâ. It catalogues the actions of recent Tory leaders and sees little difference from Green or Labour policy.
I think I will also refrain from putting a cross against the Tory candidate. I can understand why many no longer bother to vote. I will continue to vote – even if it is for the Monster Raving Loony Party – but I will avoid the globalist, centrist candidates on the ballot paper.
March 4, 2021
UK imports about ÂŁ7Bn of timber products. Realistically we might substitute say 30% that chopping down softwood forests and building processing plants. Much whining to save say ÂŁ2Bn.
Military construction is a useful makework scheme for outlying areas but largely circular money and takes resource away from productive activity. Military export is useful but by the time sales cost and kickbacks are counted this may not be as profitable as first seems. Mostly old fashioned but very well made junk so not the boon it once was, any Iphone has more modern technology.
Home grown electricity is useful but suffers from endless foot dragging and endless whining. If you want to go this way be prepared to ride roughshod and take the flak. And be a long term player suppliers can trust, no room for short term lightweights in power.
Home grown cars? We are too expensive for that and probably too small a market for big players. Cut our housing costs, big public housing projects and big education projects to provide a skilled educated workforce. Snag is we should have done that 30 years ago – like planting trees.
Realistically we must export – to places and people that want to buy. China may be looking to boost its home grown semiconductor capability and its AI capability. Big money and we have the brains but risks upsetting the Yanks. Can’t make an omelette without a few eggs. You need a plan Sir John, its a rough world out there.
March 4, 2021
Jim, So JR advocating we grow more of our own timber is “whining”, but your complaining about this idea isn’t?
March 4, 2021
Allister Heath today in the Telegraph today is spot on:-
Tories have trashed Thatcherism and embraced Europeâs politics of decline. Sunakâs Budget showed that Conservatives now think growth materialises like Manna from Heaven
Concluding correctly – âThis was an avoidably bad Budget that will haunt the Tories for years to come.â
It will not even raise any more tax in the end just reduce growth, damage investment and export jobs and whole industries. This budget and the expensive energy, zero carbon lunacy are both idiotic. Combined they are absolutely insane.
March 4, 2021
LL,
+100. Read my comment above. It was a consolidation of left wing ideology of tax and spend supported by the Govt. Build Back Better 108 page doc sneaked out under the cover of the budget. WEF left wing global ideology. Johnson is a left wing follower not leader. He likes to spend other peopleâs money! The sort Thatcher warned us against.
March 4, 2021
Seems so. Even converted to green alarmist lunacy by Carrie now.
March 4, 2021
Lifelogic, Just so – “an avoidably bad Budget that will haunt the Tories for years” (DT, Allister Heath). And at least partly made so by Boris Johnson’s 3 untargeted national lockdowns. Covid would always have hit the economy but, as Sweden demonstrates, nothing like as badly as it has done with the lockdowns.
March 4, 2021
Oh, you’re beginning to sound like a Labour politician from the 1970’s. It’s all becoming to embarrassing to see a Tory Party. its hopelessly captured Cabinet and their backbench footsoldiers pumping out this Keynesian tosh or ‘easy politics using our money’ political strategy
Round and round we go. Once again a morally bankrupt government peeing money down the drain to appear compassionate and concerned when in fact it’s just a short term cynical exercise to take our attention away from the horror show of the UK’s public finances and the destruction of social and freedom capital you and the opposition have imposed upon OUR country
Stop using debt to finance political spending and grow some balls and destroy Labour’s client state before it destroys our nation
March 4, 2021
How exactly would you have dealt with Covid.? You are always critical so you must have a better plan. Can we hear it please? We could all do with learning, especially from someone who knows it all.
March 4, 2021
@Graham it has been written here several times that we should shield the elderly and isolate the sick and let Covid do what it will everywhere else.
Much cheaper and less disruptive and with fully compensated shielding, possibly less impactful in terms of deaths.
We will never know
March 4, 2021
Dom. +100. McDonnelâs left wing national bank policy implemented by Sunak! No signs of this Blaire tribute act coming back to conservative values, ideals or strategy any time soon.
March 4, 2021
correct.
none of the politicians are making the case for wealth creators being left to do their thing, and a smaller state.
March 4, 2021
+1
March 4, 2021
Good morning
This is government spending which displaces Private Sector investment. The trouble with this is that it benefits no one.
March 4, 2021
Putting in more electricity?
Fine as long as it is reliable 24/7 and does not get paid in subsidies and constraint payments. The infrastructure is inadequate and all the time you add more turbines and solar the bill payers will get hammered even more and our production costs will rise. Can you Sir John with your 100 odd energy street wise supporters start a prolonged assault on the ignorance and incompetence that is in charge of this critical key to the nations future survival.
March 4, 2021
Well said Turbo
March 4, 2021
Electricity via interconnectors.
Sir John, how does this work ? I assume the interconnectors from France link to those in the UK and then directly from the UK to NI and the republic of Ireland. So if France threatens the connectivity to the UK to get it’s way in future fishing negotiations then presumably it would mean threatening another member state of the EU ? The UK should play dirty in all matters because the EU are doing so and we need to be more aggressive, it’s the only language the autocrats understand.
March 4, 2021
and this government can only reduce the VAT on electric bills in England, Wales & Scotland – NIs VAT is still controlled by the EU
March 4, 2021
Factoring in unemployment and underemployment costs to the UK taxpayer should always be done when Government contracts are made.
March 4, 2021
We have read views exactly like this a number of times before. It is presumed therefore that these are the best ideas you have, or you know your party’s government will not require, facilitate, enable, encourage or do anything more, even if they do this much.
Whatever may be the case the whole is woefully inadequate.
March 4, 2021
Even with this governments give aways at the next election, my prediction will be they will lose the next General election.
1. The money spent on covid was necessary, but billions was wasted on mistakes by the government and parliament. Why should we the tax payer pay for their mistakes.
2.Council tax rate at 5% is too high,care costs should come from central government funds and not local funds, Kier Starmer is correct on this point, the people will remember come the next election.
3. Sunak just followed the same old script of trying to tax his way out of the government debt crisis. The ambitious route was to increase demand by lowering taxs.
4. People will remember the poor fishing deal he got for out fishermen, and that we will never in in full control of out waters.
5.The problems of Northern Ireland , he just never dug his heels in.
6.People will forget success of the vaccine roll out quickly, but never forget it could have been better managed.
March 4, 2021
In January our imports from Germany were down by 30%.
Presumably we are sourcing the goods elsewhere.
If our new status as an independent country is hitting Germanyâs export based economy, that can only be a good thing and may even persuade the EU Commission to ease up on its current policy of petty vindictiveness towards us!
March 4, 2021
Which probably amounts to ~1% of Germany’s total exports.
March 4, 2021
Every little helps, Martin.
March 5, 2021
As someone once said, keep at it and pretty soon you are talking real money. The EU cannot afford to lose anything right now with a UK sized hole in its budget and Germany keeps it afloat. 19 0f the 27 are takers not payers. A house built on sand cannot stand forever.
March 4, 2021
It’s a strange thing that all the conventional political parties are more concerned about helping companies to export, and above all export to the EU, than helping them to produce substitutes for imports.
Otherwise, UK car manufacturers might be producing more than 12% of the new cars sold in the UK:
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2021/03/02/cars-batteries-and-the-uk-motor-industry/#comment-1213440
And as a general illustration of this phenomenon for your own party, JR, take this half-baked argument put forward by Theresa May almost exactly three years ago in her Mansion House speech:
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-speech-on-our-future-economic-partnership-with-the-european-union
As she sees it, because:
“… businesses who export to the EU tell us that it is strongly in their interest to have a single set of regulatory standards that mean they can sell into the UK and EU markets … ”
the government should automatically do what that small minority of businesses want and impose their preferred regulatory standards, EU standards. on all businesses in the UK.
But then of course this has never really been about economics, it’s always been about eurofederalist politics.
March 4, 2021
Having to produce two versions of goods to two different standards is more expensive. Goods produced solely for the UK market will lose the benefits of broader economies of scale. All your suggestion will result in is increased prices to UK consumers.
March 4, 2021
Only around 13 per cent of businesses actually trade directly with the EU. For the other 87 per cent (roughly equivalent to over five million companies), Britainâs trading relationship with the EU has little direct bearing.
March 4, 2021
And what about companies which are not part of the small minority of companies exporting to the EU?
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2021/02/15/going-for-growth-4/#comment-1210480
On an extreme view only 0.7% of UK businesses export goods to the EU, on a broader estimate about 8%, but you think that all businesses should follow EU regulations for the convenience of that minority.
And what about companies which export to other countries outside the EU, should they each demand that all companies in the UK must follow the often conflicting regulations of their export destinations?
It is, and always has been, a complete nonsense except as a means of pushing “ever closer union”.
March 4, 2021
It’s more about allowing global trade through ending the incestuous and protectionist requirement for everything to be E-marked. We should be able to buy vehicles and other goods of perfectly merchandisable quality from countries like Japan, the USA and Australia without their having to adapt them expensively to suit the EU’s specifications which are nakedly protectionist.
In our marine business, our customers have been victims of this. We have always had to pay thousands more to buy “EU certified” outboard motors, produced in Japan and the USA, which are identical and made in the same factories as those we could buy much cheaper from their countries of origin. All to get a piece of paper from the manufacturer’s UK agent with an EU stamp on it.
March 4, 2021
Peter Parsons, But the UK exports around the world already! So we are producing goods to (nominally) different standards – already. The reality of course is that many of the standards for goods are international. And we don’t need to be ruled by the EU to use them.
March 4, 2021
Not really Peter.
Manufacturing companies who supply into export markets are adept at supplying products that meet the requirements of every single market in the world they sell into.
They have been doing this for decades.
March 5, 2021
The original comment was about aligning with EU standards or not, not global standards. If the UK decides to do its own thing and deviate from a global or international standard, then my comment about economies of scale is even more relevant.
March 5, 2021
The original comment was about people like you trying to fool the UK public into thinking that there are good economic grounds for us kowtowing to EU regulations when your real purpose is political, or more exactly geopolitical. It is thanks to your kind, still very heavily over represented in the House of Commons, that we have ended up with a trade deal which benefits the EU twice as much as us, and moreover sacrificed Northern Ireland to get it.
March 5, 2021
Peter
Companies will decide whether creating a product that meets all global standards is most profitable or whether they should make products that are only suitable for the particular markets they sell into.
Why align with EU standards if you do not sell into Europe?
Many of the differences in specification are trivial
eg labelling packaging warranties and things like plugs on electrical products.
March 4, 2021
What of security of nation
Most of our military equipment from aeroplanes to nuclear weapons to combat rations to combat uniforms are all importedâŠ..likewise most of our energy requirements are either imported or owned by other nations
If weâre going to sail our own boat after brexit, our government should at the very least be planning to make our own provisions available to sustain the journey
This government has forgotten to invest and buy British
While Iâd describe yesterdays budget as lacklustre, in that I saw no vision, just more tax and subsidyâŠit could have been written by the lib dems
March 4, 2021
Sir John – is it churlish to suggest in these unusual times that the Budget was one of missed opportunity.
For the most part it would have been the perfect time to ditch all the distorted, imperfect, unreasonable and heavy taxes.
CT is staying put for the smaller guys and going up for the big guys – what sort of extra return will that achieve, I would suggest less than now. The bigger guys will just deploy more tax avoidance, because they can and its not illegal to do so.
The ‘freeport’ concept is totally flawed, if our taxes, red-tape, and so on is so restrictive that you have to make exceptions, then the flaw is the system. A freeport means simply those that cant enjoy the benefit get to be subsidise big time by those that can – the taxpayer. Its bonkers, punishing the hard workers that keep the systems going with additional taxes just so some can freeload. Its the current tax system that is flawed, tinkering, creating exceptions and so on means extra burdens elsewhere to fund the infrastructure, wealth and the health of the country.
Making exceptions were one sector has to pay more to make up a shortfall, is not a fair, free-enterprise we are all in this together. Keep demonstrating that some are more deserving than others is not creating a society of wealth creators were everyone gets to contribute fairly.
We all pay to much because so many get to ‘freeload’. Conservative Governments get labeled as creators of class of them and us – then go and confirm it.
March 4, 2021
My council tax bill has just been confirmed to rise by 4.99% – thanks very much Boris
March 4, 2021
Snap. Still, marginally better than when Blair/Brown doubled it in 10 years. Oh for those days when ‘the rates’ was a minor bill of a hundred pounds or two. Now it is like having another mortgage.
March 4, 2021
They giveth with one hand and taketh with the other
March 4, 2021
With a ÂŁ100bn/YEAR trading deficit with the EU it is clear that the opportunities for import substitution are enormous.
But import substitution shouldnât just be for goods but also for labour.
It makes no sense for us, with our already high population density, to be importing 700K new people into the country each year especially now that there will be millions unemployed from the Covid-19 pandemic.
It is time we trained all our own healthcare workers and curry restaurant cooks.
March 4, 2021
Original Richard, You are right – it is fatuous to import yet more people into the most overcrowded large country (England) in Europe. If we cannot source our own doctors and chefs from our own population, it is because the government isn’t trying – and we condemn our own young people to poorer jobs in consequence.
March 4, 2021
As well as promoting import substitutions as correctly suggested we should also be promoting a culture of mending and repairing consumer goods rather than simply buying new when, for instance, all that is required are new carbon brushes for the motor.
R&D should be spent on 3D printing to enable small replacement parts to be easily manufactured for such repairs.
Such a policy would reduce our balance of payments (the manufacturing will never return to the UK whilst we have very high energy costs), reduce manufacturing and waste which is better for the planet and at the same time create local jobs.
March 4, 2021
We need to go flat out to support the development and production of Rolls Royce’s mini-nuclear power plants. That is the route to becoming self-sufficient in producing reliable zero-carbon energy and will put us back at the forefront of nuclear power development. It’s a whole new exportable industry just waiting for us to develop here in the UK without having to be beholden to the French or Japanese in the form of EDF or Hitachi.
We need to hear and see more about the project and what the government is doing to make it happen.
March 4, 2021
Now thats a plan I’d back – I wonder why this government isn’t interestred, maybe because its not part of the EUs energy strategy
March 4, 2021
It is odd that no matter how many times it is mentioned outside government, no-one in government seems to be aware of Rolls Royce’s mini-nuclear power plants. It is all very dispiriting.
March 5, 2021
Mike Wilson, Truly the government exists in a bubble divorced from the rest of us.
March 4, 2021
Is this the OBR whose view we care about or the OBR whose forecasts are habitually ignored because they consistently describe the obvious fact that erecting trade barriers with our domestic ,market will cause economic damage ?
Brexit will make it harder to source the cheap and good quality food we have ben used to form the EU.
To sane person this is a bad thing
To member of some bizarre cult of self -harm it is an opportunity to throw tax payers money at self sufficiency otherwise known as protectionism.
If we could export stupid ideas we would rich rich rich !
March 4, 2021
Were there a market for trolls we would be even better off.
March 4, 2021
To any sane person what you write is nonsense.
March 4, 2021
Newmania, I get very little food from the EU. And I’m trying to eliminate that too. Perhaps you could ask the EU to remove its self imposed trade barriers? But it looks like the EU wants to make trade difficult. That’s their problem. And before you pop up – no, a central government in Brussels is not necessary for trade.
March 4, 2021
Interesting Sir John, I’ve just watched Sadiq Khan claim that the Tories have jumped on the anti-London band waggon I think he’s correct. Johnson’s obsession with keeping the Red Wall on side can only mean one thing less money being spent in the South, most of which is raised here. For every five pounds a Londoner earns at least one pound is spent on the North wasted money in my view. I unfortunately had to go to the North as part of my work the only thing that matched the chip every Northerner has on their shoulder is the amount of chips they can shovel down the their throats.
Why is Wokingham the healthiest place in the country, because your constituents are concerned about their health and why is Blackpool the unhealthiest place in the country because Northerners aren’t.
Wokingham before Workington don’t let us Southerners continue to be taken for mugs.
March 4, 2021
Weary, What a nasty petty little diatribe. People are good and bad in both the South and the North.
March 4, 2021
You don’t mention ‘Call me Dave”s cosying up to China’s dictator which encouraged relying on everything now dumped here. Is the pub they bought going to reopen?
March 4, 2021
We can grow and catch as much of our own food as we like, fact is we can now only sell it to a British market of 60 million instead of an EU market eight times as big. That’s why British fishermen, farmers and all the middlemen are going bust, or moving their business to the EU. That’s why Brexit is the most economically potty decision any country has ever freely taken
March 4, 2021
Why can’t we sell our goods outside of the EU? A zero tariff deal on cheese and pork with US has just been announced.
March 4, 2021
What you say might make more sense for some other country, one which was a net exporter of food.
March 4, 2021
How can British fishermen move their business to the EU? If they do theyâre not British fishermen any longer and canât get permits for our water, they will need a new permit from their new boss the EU.
There is a bigger market for British fish than many bigots believe, we need to discover why these British fishermen charge us in the UK a lot more than their export market and is it them overcharging or the middle-men supermarkets. The government can make a good start buying British fish to put into meals for children at school, hospital catering, care homes. We like fish, it is often too expensive as I say and we need to find out why.
March 4, 2021
Grey, Rubbish. Fact is we can eat all the food we produce because we are a net food importer to the tune of about 30%.
March 4, 2021
We were in the EU for 40 years. We have control of our future for 11 weeks.
It will take 5,10,15,20 years to replace those who made their living from the EU.
March 4, 2021
Fortunately, according to ONS, it will not take quite so long to replace most of those who voted Leave.
March 4, 2021
In 20 years weâll either be back in – or well on our way to rejoining.
March 4, 2021
Dream on.
Which political party will have that as a manifesto commitment?
March 5, 2021
Andy, That’s one of your main problems – you believe your opinions are facts.
March 4, 2021
Very disappointing budget – corporation tax take has increased with reductions – very odd.
A move to 12.5% would have made more sense.
Freezing lowest tax relief band – smart way to level up!!!!!!!!!!
March 4, 2021
As there seems to be constant harking back to World War II when food rationing didn’t end until 1954, can we expect the same measures from this government as the vocal tone seems equally dire?
March 4, 2021
Shocking figures from the ONS show 40% of over 80s whoâve had their Covid vaccines have broken lockdown rules.
Younger people have risked their lives and livelihoods for a year to keep the elderly safe. And the second older people are protected half of them break the rules – putting the lives of younger people at risk.
Shameful from a shameless generation.
March 4, 2021
evidence?
March 4, 2021
the opposite is true! the younger people flout every rule in the book, knowing they have little to fear, while the over 70s are permanently locked inhouse. Andy if you don’t know the over 70s – worse still over 80s are at serious risk of death from those who flout the rules you need to acquaint yourself with the ONS data! Don’t believe social media nonsense read facts!
March 4, 2021
More shameful is they have voted all their lives for borrow and spend governments, racking up debts for the next generation.
The thing is, the young generation will do the same to the next in their turn.
March 4, 2021
And good luck to those 40%, Andy. They probably know the whole thing is a virtue-signalling sham, and younger people who were barely at any more risk of serious illness than usual were idiots for putting up with it. The sooner the other 60% try to enjoy their remaining years, the better for them and for everyone.
March 4, 2021
Andy, yes it’s dreadful how all those over-80s have escaped from their care homes and gone to rave parties, isn’t it? Then there’s my 95yr old aunt who went completely crackers today and walked to the bus stop, clambered onto a bus and put no doubt VAST amounts of young people at risk by getting her second vaccine at her GP’s surgery and coming home the same way, because she doesn’t have a car and there are no taxi services available.
March 4, 2021
Ageist again Andy, are the people that are breaking these rules all doing so with just other over 80âs or are they meeting the angel younger generation also breaking the rules. I donât know I donât break the rules but you seem to be very knowledgable or just discriminatory I canât make my mind up.
March 5, 2021
you can’t make up your mind? Startling!
March 4, 2021
Andy, You’re one of the main proponents of the untargeted national lockdowns, not me. I think those of us under 60 should never have been locked down. Then livelihoods would not have been at risk. As for general risk, road accidents are a greater risk than covid19.
March 4, 2021
I believe that we are still in the clutches of the EU grand energy distribution policy
The EU has a policy to manage and distribution the resources of agriculture, energy, fisheries, manufacturing, commerce, military and people
Due to the Withdrawal Agreement, the Trade & Cooperation Agreement and the NI Protocol constraints weâll never be able to plan and direct our own resources without instruction from the EU
March 4, 2021
The Chancellor rightly wants to lead a big investment revival.
(1) Output losses to political crises are long lived. The past year is a political crisis. This needs to be resolved.
(2) Public debt (for some types of investment inc. energy, transport connectivity) crowd in private investment and consumption in the long run. Private debt due to mortgages can have a short term output and consumption crowding in effect, but by the medium term crowds out; its persistnet encouragement is damaging.
March 4, 2021
For Brexit to be a success in practice, it is vitally important that the government has the right policies in place. There is always a danger with Arts graduates in government who have no real world experience of creating added value in a competitive industry that they will be re-fighting old battles after the world has moved on.
The government has the naive idea that what they deem as vital intellectual property and its associated manufacturing capacity must be safeguarded from foreign predation by ‘hostile’ nations but ‘allies’ can still tuck in; everything else has a potential for sale sign on it. No other advanced nation takes this cavalier attitude to their best sources of creating added value, skilled employment and income and especially not whilst bellyaching about our chronic failure to increase our relative GDP per capita.
The rate of change in manufacturing industry spurred on by what is tantamount to a new industrial revolution driven by the Integrated Circuit is intense and so is the international competition. Allowing this country to innovate for others to predate using money created out of thin air by banks is a recipe for ignominious failure at the expense of those whose predecessors in this country, not the politicians, created the first Industrial Revolution and turned us into the premier world power.
Some rationalisation of mature industries is inevitable as progressively higher product volumes become necessary to cover development costs but, in general, it is the duty of the government to protect our intellectual property and manufacturing capacity by preventing it from falling into the hands of foreigners, financial spivs or accountants, building up conglomerates, who treat businesses solely as the means for extracting short term capital gains and profits out of businesses they do not understand.
March 4, 2021
Right on. And add railway rolling stock to that list. Let us specialise in modern lightweight rolling stock.
March 4, 2021
Newmania, You must have the trade barrier between England and NI in mind, you know, the one created by the EU as a running sore.
The EU is one of the greatest protectionist blocs in the World. I will not boor you with the details which should be obvious to even the myopic. Between expanded UK farming and the rest of the World we should do very nicely. I thank you for your concern.
March 4, 2021
The true cost of Brexit is slowly starting to manifest itself.
There are significant obstacles and red tape trying to trade with Britain’s biggest partner.
Over the next 3 years, there is a good opportunity to demonstrate to younger voters the real benefits of being part of the EU.
We need the closest possible partnership with the EU locked down through International law.
This can be equivalent to joining the EU Customs Union.
This is means a coalition of labour AND Scottish nationalists with help from Lib Dems, and this is a good possible outcome from the next election.
March 4, 2021
Does Labour want to rejoin?
March 5, 2021
David Brown, The UK’s biggest trade partner by far (about 6 times bigger than the EU) is ourselves (by UK GDP). Next comes the rest of the world. The EU is third and last. There are no benefits to being a subject state of the EU empire for us as a country, or for almost 90% of our economy. There’s more to the world than the EU.
March 4, 2021
Off topic:
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/ni-faces-same-number-of-agri-food-checks-as-entire-eu-when-grace-period-ends-40159651.html
“NI âfaces same number of agri-food checks as entire EU when grace period endsâ”
That’s because goods imported from a country which used to be an EU member state and which still retains the relevant laws originally derived from the EU during its period of membership will suddenly pose a much greater risk than when that country was an EU member state, of course they will, and that must be so even when the goods in question are just being moved from one part of that country to another part but some of them might conceivably be ‘at risk’ of moving on to the EU, and this has nothing to do with any arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination or any disguised restriction on international trade because if it did that would constitute a breach of the WTO treaties to which the EU collectively and all of its member states individually are parties.
March 4, 2021
Good topic – Why isn’t this happening?
March 4, 2021
What happened to the Laffer curve and the very firmly held belief amongst many Tories that LOWERING Corporation Tax INCREASED the tax take.
Now, it appears, that belief was baloney as, presumably, the aim of putting it up to 25% is to get more tax. Or is it? Is this a cunning stunt to get less tax by putting the tax rate up?
March 4, 2021
I see there is still loads of money to go round.
It’s only our taxes. Who cares. Splash it about and waste it at will.
March 4, 2021
Was it this government that reversed the decision to cap the payout settlements to public employees ???
There should be a cap of ÂŁ50k max !
March 4, 2021
Grow our own, make our own is how it should be so why has TfLondon bought 293 Electric buses off the Chinese?
March 4, 2021
There are two ways to reduce a trade deficit. One is to reduce imports and the other is to increase exports. The second is better, because it increases employment and investment in export industries. But you need to be careful to concentrate on investment that increases output of goods your export markets want, and in whose production you have a natural advantage. It is a very bad idea to try to replace imports by subsidizing domestic industries that cannot compete without a subsidy.
This is not a trivial point. Our entire Coal and Steel industries before Thatcher, employing millions of people, depended on taxpayer subsidies and protective tariffs just to survive, cost billions, bled investment away from better industries, led to significant social conflict, and died in the end anyway. It would be very foolish to repeat a mistake like that.