Digby Jones: Hard work starts now for new coalition
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IN his secondly monthly column for TheBusinessDesk.com West Midlands, Digby, Lord Jones of Birmingham, looks at the task ahead for the new coalition Government. The former Midlands lawyer, CBI boss and Government minister fears for tax revenues if ministers start hammering transport operations and banks. So now the hard work starts. All the pomp and circumstance, the headlines, the angst, the teddy-throwing and the love-ins are over. There is strength, purpose and freshness about this administration, but, above all, a new way of governing. Yet it faces huge issues with the economy and some hard nuts to crack – foreign wars, climate change, and our broken society. I have written to various members of the Cabinet, congratulating them, wishing them well, but bringing a 10-point priority list to their attention and asking what they intend to do about it. In no particular order then… We need to get a grip on the serious inefficiency and over manning in the administration of the NHS. Let’s ensure our young people leave school at 16 able, at the very least, to read, write, count, and operate a computer. Small businesses need support as they dip their toes into the exporting pond. How are we going to help them for the better? If we are going to trade our way out of our economic mess it is vital to develop a manufacturing strategy…and stick to it! If we are not to have a third runway at Heathrow or any expansion at Gatwick or Stansted, quite how is the UK’s position as a global hub for trade and investment going to be maintained? High speed rail lines won’t help getting the extra business traffic that comes with economic success to and from our trading partners or attract more overseas tourists to these shores. If there is to be no Government funding for building new nuclear power stations, quite how is the UK going to meet its international climate change obligations? How are we going to keep the lights on in six years time when we run out of electricity – cover the country in windmills and solar panels? Do we put people in prison if they don’t insulate their lofts? I don’t think so! Extend the retirement age quickly and reform in the face of enormous, selfish union hostility the public sector pension system. Next, it is imperative we get fully and fiscally behind one of our globally-excellent sectors so that we really lead and win in the world economy…our universities. If we are to tax the plane and not the passenger, quite how are we going to maintain the UK as the European hub for parcel freight? Thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of pounds of tax revenue are here in the UK because of the investment of DHL, TNT, FedEx and UPS. If we force them offshore to Brussels or Paris we will lose all the jobs and the tax. Then they will truck UK-bound parcels into our country. That really will help on carbon emissions…not! Finally, Messrs Cameron, Osborne, Clegg and Cable, just remember as you salivate over giving the banks a good, vicious, populist kicking that our financial services may deliver a mere 8% of GDP but they produce some 24% of all taxation revenue for the Government. Please don’t let it be lured away by the likes of Mumbai, Hong Kong, Qatar, Shanghai, Bangalore and Bahrain. The nation wanted an end to the old way; it voted, above all else, for change. Well…here it is. Governing Britain? A piece of cake!
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