Spring Statement 2019: business as usual?

This Spring Statement, similar to last year's, is a purposefully played down event. The move to a single fiscal event was of course welcomed by business last year - an overdue decision by the Chancellor to bring much-needed stability to the tax policy cycle. But the lack of conversation around the upcoming spring statement is notable.

We are a few short weeks out from the Chancellor standing up to deliver his statement and there is very little known about what he might say. The B word has taken over - understandably so. This isn't helped by the fact the statement falls on the same day as the no deal vote on 13th March. If the Chancellor decides to go ahead, there will be a real question raised about whether he can cut through the noise. It's unsurprising then that this fiscal event is coasting under the radar.

And yet, this seems like the perfect time for a vision. A vision for what the economy should look like as the UK enters a new era. Businesses up and down the country have been repeatedly raising the frustration that Brexit is sucking the energy out of everything else. One example is the consultation we are awaiting on the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, set to replace the funding currently being received through the EU Structural Funds. Part of the Conservative Party Manifesto, this could be an opportunity for the UK to set out priorities and tackle those long-standing regional inequalities alongside the local industrial strategies. Business is ready to work with the government to achieve this but needs some indication about what the direction of travel is.

A second area to consider is skills where the government has an opportunity to show some vision. Regardless of Brexit, the workforce is facing some huge shifts. How you train people for that, how you regulate those jobs, and how you tax them are all still questions. Investing in people has never seemed more, important yet our education system can at times still feel terribly disjointed with the needs of business. Setting out how this government sees itself tackling these big questions would be welcomed.

The politics are tricky and separating this from Brexit will be the biggest challenge the Chancellor faces. But business likes a vision, and we have seen the Chancellor deliver on this before. Both his Conservative Party Conference speech and his Autumn Budget speech were welcomed for its pro-business tones. In these times of unprecedented uncertainty, what the Chancellor says and how he says it can make a crucial difference – even at a ‘forgotten’ fiscal event.