Policy Update 28th November 2023

Welcome to this week’s policy update. As ever please do get in touch with me, [email protected], if you would like to discuss the following, or other, business issues, put forward your views and/or provide real life examples that we can use in advocacy activity. ?

We published our response to the Autumn Statement last week. If you missed it you can read it here. While there were some positive moves, it was disappointing not to have seen more support for businesses. Please get in touch with any comments or queries, [email protected]. ?

The scale of increase to the National Living Wage (NLW) will put further pressure on businesses, requiring pay increases for many who were significantly above the NLW and impacting on differentials. ?

There was however positive news for Cumbria, with announcement of ￡7m funding towards a rural enterprise hub project near Penrith. You can read more here: Welcome for ￡7m rural enterprise hub funding | Westmorland and Furness Council. ?

There was also ￡5m for Barrow supporting a new Delivery Board aimed at ensuring local people see lasting benefits from investment in the Defence Nuclear Enterprise. ?

And Kendal is provisionally set to benefit from ￡13.5m for The Heart of Kendal Project, which includes town centre regeneration schemes and improvements to connectivity along the River Kent.

You can read more here: Heart of Kendal project to receive ￡13.5million from Levelling Up Fund | Westmorland and Furness Council. ? You can read the Statement in full here: Autumn Statement 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) and the OBR Economic and Fiscal Outlook Summary here: Budget November 2023: OBR Economic Forecast. ?

If you haven’t completed it yet, don’t forget to complete the Quarterly Economic Survey (QES) Q4, which closes on Thursday 30th November. You can complete it here. ?

On Friday, businesses in West Cumbria had an opportunity to meet with Labour candidate Josh MacAlister, facilitated by the Chamber and Britain’s Energy Coast Business Cluster. The Chamber is a politically neutral organisation, so opportunities to meet with businesses are also available to candidates in this and other constituencies. ?

I have a round of meetings coming up with Cumbrian MPs, so please let me know any particular issues or questions you have in advance of these, [email protected]. ?

The team at British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) continue to be out and about working on your behalf. This week:

• Director General, Shevaun Haviland will be meeting with the new Chair of the British Business Bank, Stephen Welton CBE.
• Shevaun will be attending a Business Roundtable hosted by the Secretary of State for Education, Gillian Keegan MP.
• Shevaun will be speaking at the British Chamber of Commerce in Germany’s Conference at the Germany Embassy in London.
• BCC Chair, Sarah Howard MBE will be speaking at an event hosted by the Malta UK Business Network at the Malta High Commission

The BCC will be represented on the new UK government engagement forum on trade policy and negotiations. The first meeting takes place next week. ?

The Chancellor called Shevaun directly on Wednesday morning to thank her for BCC’s engagement over the last few months to help the Treasury and she also went to a small fireside Q&A with him on Wednesday evening hosted by CCHQ at Bloomberg. ?

Last week Shevaun and members of the BCC team travelled to Brussels to meet with senior EU politicians and business leaders. This included:

• Attending the?European Parliament of Enterprises 2023?Gathering in the European Parliament with over 800 businesses and leaders from across the European Union.??
• Meeting with Oliver?Várhelyi?- the Hungarian European Commission for Neighbourhood and Enlargement.
• Meeting with the Vice President of the EU Commission?Maro? ?ef?ovi??- a key player in the EU and throughout the Brexit negotiations. They talked at length about the implementation review of the TCA which will begin at the end of next year and about where?the political dialogue has seen a marked improvement.
• Presenting? to the?British Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and the EU?where they discussed economic conditions and improving trading relationships with attendees. They met heads of government affairs of large multinational companies in their membership who expressed some of their challenges around navigating in the new business environment.
• Meeting with the UK Ambassador to the EU – Lindsay Croisdale-Appleby, discussing ?key developments on the horizon and how the UK political and business communities may need to respond.

Also last week:

• Shevaun was in Paris with the ICC World Chambers Federation for the meeting of the General Council. They discussed key mutual objectives of driving global trade and economic growth.
• Sarah and Shevaun attended the Santander UK Annual Chairman’s Reception.
• BCC took part in a Ministerial Policy Roundtable on trade with Turkiye with Trade Minister Greg Hands MP.?
• BCC met with the Australian High Commission economic and trade team to discuss youth and professional mobility schemes under the Australia-UK trade agreement.
• BCC hosted a call between senior UK government officials, Chambers and affected member companies on the issue of EU sanctions on Russian sourced or processed steel products.
• Head of Trade Policy, William Bain took part in a webinar on the forthcoming Border Target Operating Model with the UK Trade Policy Observatory.

UK trade negotiations for an upgraded agreement with South Korea were launched in London last week. You can read Chambers’ hopes for the negotiations outcomes here: South Korean Trade Negotiations Can Boost UK? - British Chambers of Commerce.

On 6th December the UK government will increase planning application fees. The BCC has called for all additional fees to be ringfenced to improve planning services. The main points of the changes include:

• An increase of 35% for applications for major development and 25% for all other applications.
• An annual indexation of planning applications fees, capped at 10%, from 1 April 2025.
• Removing the fee exemption for repeat applications (the ‘free-go’).?
• Reducing the Planning Guarantee for non-major planning applications from 26 to 16 weeks.

You may find more detail on Government’s ￡2.5bn Back to Work Plan helpful/interesting. This is aimed at supporting more people in their journey back to work by addressing their needs and empowering individuals to fulfil their potential.?The plan includes:

• Directing more help towards the long-term sick and disabled to help people stay in work or get back into work.?
• Improving the support for claimants to return to work, providing additional support for the long-term unemployed alongside more rigorous expectations and working to understand and address their needs while taking stronger action against those who fail to engage with back-to-work support.

As part of this they’re Extending Restart for two years, providing around 500,000 Universal Credit claimants with access to intensive support to tackle the barriers preventing them from entering work. The scheme will also support claimants earlier in their journey at six-months, rather than nine.?They’re also looking at overhauling fit notes, as part of this trialling reforms which will ensure people are not written off when they have a health condition. Together, these interventions will be targeted at people at any stage of unemployment, whether they’re at risk of leaving the workforce or have been unemployed for a long time. ?

Alongside this additional support they’re introducing tougher sanctions for people who should be looking for work. If people are still out of work after 18 months and repeated attempts to offer support, DWP will expect them to take up work experience or other intensive activity to get them off benefits and into jobs. ?

They’re also substantially expanding three programmes which support mental and physical health – Universal Support, NHS Talking Therapies and Individual Placement and Support for Serious Mental Illness.? On top of this a new WorkWell service is being launched, delivered by the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Health and Social Care, which will support almost 60,000 long-term sick or disabled people to start, stay and succeed in work. A prospectus launch in coming weeks will provide information for all Integrated Care Systems across England to develop their localised work and health strategies. The service will then be delivered in up to 15 pilot areas.

Complementing the above package, the response to the Occupational Health: Working Better consultation has been published. The Government is also continuing to explore the case for providing further support to employers through the tax system and will respond to the HMT and HMRC consultation Tax Incentives for Occupational Health in due course. ?

To support employers and employees to have better interactions about work and health, and to provide Occupational Health services, the Government will be establishing an expert group to support the development of the voluntary national baseline for Occupational Health provision and?exploring the development of national workplace health and disability standards. The Government will also explore options for a potential new SME group purchasing framework supported by a digital marketplace and use learning from our existing Workforce Expansion scheme to develop a long-term strategic OH workforce approach.? ?

You can read more here: Occupational Health: Working Better - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). ?

The Government has also published its response to the consultation on changes to the Work Capability Assessment criteria having carefully considered feedback from disabled people and people with health conditions, as well as the organisations that represent and support them. As a result DWP will:

• Be making changes to how they assess the Mobilising and Getting About activities as well as the Substantial Risk rules to reflect the modern world of work and greater employment opportunities for disabled people since the WCA criteria were last reviewed in 2011.
• Continue to protect those with the most severe conditions while ensuring those that can work are supported in doing so. Their expanded employment and health offer will provide integrated and tailored support to disabled people to support them and help move claimants closer to work.
• Be bringing forward a new ‘Chance to Work Guarantee’ that will remove the fear of re-assessments and give people the confidence to try work, while providing continuity of service for vulnerable claimants.

You can read more here: Work Capability Assessment: activities and descriptors - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).?

Suzanne Caldwell