- george osborne
Having taken a closer look at the Autumn Statement delivered by George Osborne yesterday it does seem that there is finally a small glimpse of a vision being set in place for the economy. Hopefully it will be delivered far more effectively than the vision of the first budget that he delivered.
George Osborne first budget vision just fizzled out.
That first budget promised much to provide much needed homes to young people with derelict office blocks being opened up to housing development – but nothing has happened. It was a vision and promise that failed to happen and young people are increasingly being denied homes due to a failed housing and planning policy. The government really does need to get it’s act together and start getting rid of legislation that is preventing homes from being built and stopping housing costs from dropping.
So after the debacle of his first budget George Osborne has tried to set in place a new vision for Britain and is trying to re-stoke the fires of the economy to provide homes and jobs for a generation – or two - that has been ignored for the last 20 years. I can only hope that this ‘Statement to build’ will be far more effective.
Little money left to spend in Autumn Statement.
One of the problems for George Osborne is that he has very little money to spend without making more drastic cuts to day to day spending. This is the legacy of Gordon Brown. Brown borrowed money not to spend on infrastructure and homes but to pay the day to day bills. Everybody with even the slightest understanding of budgeting knows that you don’t borrow money to pay day to day bills – you live within your means.
The country needs much more money spent on infrastructure and homes. The only way to get that money available for long term investment is to cut the day to day spending and shift the money to investment.
More money needs to be shifted from day to day spending to infrastructure.
Unfortunately those cuts are going to have to be placed on those who benefited the most under Gordon Brown - afterall their extra benefits and bonuses came from the borrowing that has lead to our current financial situation. And the baby boomers are going to have to accept responsibility for looking after themselves during old age and not expect the younger tax payers to foot their living expenses.
Last night there was a programme on ITV Wales about fuel poverty in Wales. It’s said that about 30% of households in Wales are subject to fuel poverty. If that’s so then the programme makers could have found more deserving cases than those featured. We had one baby boomer who was complaining that he could not gain access to benefits because he had a plot of land he was not prepared to sell. Well my view is that state benefits are to help you to survive in tough times they are not there to help you protect your assets or give you a good standard of living.
In much the same way, it’s not the job of young tax payers to pay for care homes of old people if those people have assets that they can sell. The welfare state is there to provide a basic and emergency level of support – it’s not there to protect personal wealth and assets.
There’s still room for substantial cuts to day to day spending and for those savings to be transfered across in to infrastructure investment, we’ve lived on the investments of the Victorians for too long and the signs of wear and tear are showing and reducing our competitiveness.
Bringing environmental legislation back to it’s original aims.
Changes to legislation though is what will drive the economy forward. The endless round of planning appeals that many NIMBY’s use to either stop development or add substantially to the cost of the development has to be brought to an end. We need to get housing built ASAP and while there should be a case for appeal there has to be a tight time-frame for that appeal to be heard and then it’s over. We can not have ongoing public enquiries and judicial reviews about housing or power stations, the time has run out for that we are in a housing and energy crisis and the building needs to start.
But it’s not just planning regulations and policies that need to be brought up to date for the crisis that we have been put in by Labour. George Osborne yesterday said that the Habitats Directive will be re-examined to see if it’s fit for purpose. That needs to happen, the legislation was initially bought in to protect our most valuable and large scale internationally important nature sites. Now it’s regularly used as an objection to planning even if the site is not internationally important for wildlife. That legislation needs to be bought back to what it was initially set up to do and that is protect our most valuable internationally important sites. There’s lots of other legislation which is mis-used by NIMBY’s that need to be looked at again, not least the well known and used village green scam legislation.
Green infrasturcture investment needs to be science based not idealogy focussed.
Investment in our infrastructure is much needed and it also offers the opportunity to invest in green infrastructure. This green infrastructure investment needs to be real investment in methods that has scientific evidence that it works rather than green infrastructure based on campaigning and lobbying. Our new housing estates needs to have green infrastructure investment at the water shed level – this helps tackle flooding issues. When old water mains needs to be replaced in our towns and cities then we need to be looking at new techniques of managing water-flow within the urban environment.
We also need to ensure that wildlife mitigation measures on new road, rail and other developments are supported by real independent science and are not just expensive projects lobbied for by vested interest groups. Bat and mouse bridges over roads are an ideal example of this. If you spend £500 -£650,000 on a bat bridge or mouse bridge across a road there needs to be evidence that it works – at the moment there is no independent scientific evidence to justify the cost.
Public funds should be targetted to enhancing rail.
I can understand why the government wants to improve and expand the road and airport network though my personal choice is that money would be better spent on getting HS2 up and running and expanding high speed rail across the UK. It would also be better spent connecting our future high speed rail network up to the continental network at one or two international rail hubs so passengers don’t have to tramp around the overcrowded London Underground network.
Most people I speak to once they’ve used the Euro-tunnel to get to Europe think it’s much better that flying into an airport. That city centre to city centre convenience that can only be achieved by rail has huge potential if we can only bring the UK rail system up to the same quality as most European countries. Perhaps there’s even an argument for beginning to think about building a second Channel Tunnel? If China has a vision and plan to connect up the world with a series of high speed rail lines then surely Britain could at least connect up it’s major cities to the European network.
The extra money heading towards science is good news. The £80 million to the animal health laboritories is a good boost as it will be spent on better understanding of poultry husbandry methods and dealing with poultry illnesses. Only last week we published a study on the importance of bush meat to child nutrition and if wildlife is to be protected from illegal poaching then a cheap easy to rear meat source needs to be provided to families. Poultry is the perfect replacement and better husbandry methods in the developing nations can help protect wildlife.
Autumn Statement boosted confidence in the economy.
Overall the Autumn Statement was pretty good. George Osborne had little to play with but today I feel much more positive and upbeat about the UK economy than I did on Monday – I just hope all the plans do not fizzle away as they did with that first Budget that George Osborne delivered which offered so much initial promise.
