{"id":144841,"date":"2023-11-30T10:45:36","date_gmt":"2023-11-30T09:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/?p=144841"},"modified":"2023-11-30T10:45:36","modified_gmt":"2023-11-30T09:45:36","slug":"vuelio-x-trade-association-forum-highlights-from-the-2023-autumn-statement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/vuelio-x-trade-association-forum-highlights-from-the-2023-autumn-statement\/","title":{"rendered":"Vuelio x Trade Association Forum: Highlights from the 2023 Autumn Statement"},"content":{"rendered":"

The morning following the Government\u2019s Autumn Statement<\/a> on 22 November, Vuelio and the Trade Association Forum<\/a> came together to hold a breakfast briefing for a crowd of communications and public affairs professionals.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Autumn<\/p>\n

The discussion was driven by a panel of experts eager to discuss the most pressing issues and their predictions following the announcement.<\/p>\n

– Emily Wallace, CEO, Trade Association Forum
\n– Jeremy Gray, Head of Policy, Federation of Master Builders
\n– Craig Beaumont, Chief of External Affairs, Federation of Small Businesses
\n– Thomas Pope, Deputy Chief Economist, Institute for Government
\n– Jennifer Prescott, Political Services Team Lead, Vuelio<\/p>\n

As British newspapers followed up on the statement, the most popular topics were tax cuts and public service spending, quality of education, inflation and fiscal drag, support for small businesses, and welfare among marginalised communities.<\/p>\n

Springtime speculations for General Election<\/h3>\n

A prominent prediction \u2013 in both the media and public affairs sector \u2013 is that Jeremy Hunt\u2019s tax-cutting motives are a \u2018populist move\u2019 ahead of a possible General Election next spring. When the crowd at Vuelio\u2019s breakfast briefing were asked for a show of hands, a little over half predicted May, the rest said Autumn, while nobody thought January.<\/p>\n

As reported by The Independent<\/a>, Hunt insisted his tax cuts were orientated towards \u2018long-term growth\u2019 for the economy, and called it \u2018silly\u2019 to suggest this was a populist move tied to the timing of the next election.<\/p>\n

In the two days following a piece from The Guardian<\/a> quoting Hunt that the cuts were the \u2018biggest in history\u2019, 68 national newspapers and 103 regional news outlets shared the claim.<\/p>\n

Threats to public services<\/h3>\n

As part of these cuts, an estimated \u00a319bn cut in public service spending also raised concerns on the impact on NHS treatment and the relative labour force. Shortly after the Autumn Statement, The Independent quoted The Institute for Fiscal Studies in warning that Britain was on course for \u2018drastic public-sector cuts<\/a>\u2019 that are \u2018even more painful than the austerity of the 2010s\u2019.<\/p>\n

Hunt was quoted in 48% of tax-cut coverage in national British newspapers, stating \u2018if you want to put more money into the NHS, you need a strong economy\u2019.<\/p>\n

Alongside healthcare, a member of Lambeth Council, who attended the briefing, raised concerns to the panel about the survival, quality, and maintenance of local governments. They also added that the issue could potentially be tackled by raising minimum wage for staff employed by councils.<\/p>\n

Panelist Jeremy Gray, Head of Policy at The Federation of Master Builders, agreed with this statement and furthered that local authority funding has been restricted so heavily, cases of local authorities going bankrupt or not being able to provide basic services are on the rise.
\nHeather Stewart, The Guardian\u2019s former political editor, voted it as one of the public sectors that will \u2018suffer most<\/a>\u2019 to \u2018pay for Tory tax-cuts\u2019 \u2013 second to courts, prisons, and probation services.<\/p>\n

Fiscal drag<\/h3>\n

The relative impact of fiscal drag \u2013 a concept whereby inflation of wages pushes people into higher tax brackets \u2013 is a rapidly growing concern. Economists have repeatedly argued across the press that the overall tax burden will remain at a record high<\/a>, because of the continued freeze on tax thresholds.<\/p>\n

A representative for a well-known homeless charity who attended the briefing, referenced the issue when arguing against Hunt\u2019s decision to reduce national insurance by 2%. Their argument, that this reduction doesn\u2019t hold up next to the \u2018failure\u2019 to address Brits under the poverty line, was widely supported by the panel, adding that Brits are not protected from falling deeper.<\/p>\n

Vuelio’s Jennifer Prescott added to this conversation, stating that tax cuts were framed as a \u2018positive spin\u2019 in the statement, but the media has rapidly revealed studies suggesting why the opposite could be true. This is due to recent research, including IPPR\u2019s release<\/a> that only \u00a33 of every \u00a3100 goes to worse-off families. Further, Sunak\u2019s claims of \u2018halving inflation\u2019 have been widely criticised as \u2018misleading<\/a>\u2019 and \u2018boastful<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n

Support for businesses<\/h3>\n

On a more positive note, business proposals were overall welcomed by the breakfast briefing crowd; particularly due to the focus on start-ups and smaller companies, i.e. business rates relief and full capital expensing.<\/p>\n

Panellist Craig Beaumont added to this conversation that we should pay as much attention to the Liberal Democrats for this kind of support, pointing to their successes in South West England.<\/p>\n

Unsupported education goals<\/h3>\n

Jennifer Prescott mentioned that Sunak\u2019s 20 November speech, including his five key priorities for 2023, mentioned goals for a \u2018world class education system<\/a>\u2019, yet any sort of plan for this was missing from the Autumn Statement.<\/p>\n

Change in OBR attitudes<\/h3>\n

Panellist Thomas Pope, Deputy Chief Economist of Institute for Government, placed significant emphasis on how the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has \u2018downgraded\u2019 its economic forecast, stating that it is \u2018usually optimistic\u2019. This observation was also covered by The Guardian, adding that inflation will likely exceed<\/a> the 2% target until 2025.<\/p>\n

Publishing updated forecasts from the OBR, the Chancellor said the Government was moving to \u2018get the economy back on track<\/a>\u2019 after the pandemic and energy crisis. However, while the economy will avoid a recession this year \u2013 with a revision to forecasts for a drop of 0.2%, to growth of 0.6% \u2013 the OBR slashed its estimates for 2024 from growth of 1.8% to only 0.7%.<\/p>\n

Disability Welfare<\/h3>\n

Alongside concerns for families under the poverty line, Hunt has been accused of \u2018demonising<\/a>\u2019 disabled people in the press \u2013 a term used in 86 of the 483 national news headlines that emerged four days after the statement. This followed sweeping welfare changes that will \u2018strip<\/a>\u2019 disability benefits for those who don\u2019t appear to be actively looking for work. The regime will mean welfare recipients who do not get a job within 18 months will have to do mandatory work experience, while those who don’t look for work for a six-month period will have benefits stopped.<\/p>\n

While the Chancellor said the goal is to save \u2018wasted potential\u2019 in the population, criticisms were high among the breakfast briefing crowd. Hunt also confirmed a rise in benefits and the state pension but said he would penalise those who took the taxpayer for granted with a crackdown on the long-term unemployed. The work capability assessment will be changed to assume that more of those with physical disabilities are able to work from home, while unemployed people who have been claiming universal credit for 18 months will lose work benefits unless they have a good reason.<\/p>\n

Jennifer Prescott added that this was not reflective of a \u2018compassionate conservatism<\/a>\u2019, a philosophy that the party has frequently identified with since election in 2010. Others added that the speech and statement lacked support for the working class and marginalised communities as a whole.<\/p>\n

Polarising the conversation<\/h3>\n

Whether or not Hunt\u2019s announcements are catered to an oncoming election, several members of the panel, including Emily Wallace, CEO at Trade Association Forum, expressed belief that there was an essence of \u2018owning\u2019 the past 13 years of power throughout Hunt\u2019s speech and the Autumn Statement \u2013 for example, Hunt referencing the education system proposed under David Cameron\u2019s power. Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves responded to this commentary by arguing that public services have been repeatedly neglected, and that it is now \u2018too little too late<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n

Reeves also received high volumes of national coverage for \u2018attacking<\/a>\u2019 the Conservative party, particularly for \u2018presiding over low growth and high taxes\u2019. The Guardian quoted<\/a> the Shadow Chancellor in her statement that working people are \u2018worse off under the Conservatives\u2019 with \u2018growth down, mortgages up, prices up, taxes up, debt up\u2019.<\/p>\n

When asked about presumptions for the near future, Jennifer Prescott added that Labour are in a strong position to use the fact that the Conservatives have been in power for 13 years and therefore have a record to defend.<\/p>\n

Vuelio Political Monitoring can help you track the impact of political activity on your campaigns. Want to know more about how our services can support your PR and communications? Get in touch<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the morning following the Government\u2019s Autumn Statement on 22 November, Vuelio and the Trade Association Forum came together to hold a breakfast briefing for a crowd of communications and public affairs professionals – here are some of the highlights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":451,"featured_media":144843,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7383,7271],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144841"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/451"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144841"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":144850,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144841\/revisions\/144850"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}