Next month’s Autumn Statement is unlikely to be one filled with tax cuts and lavish spending plans.
It seems clear, with borrowing already high and the cost of servicing debt rocketing, that Jeremy Hunt is unlikely feel like he has much wiggle room.
So BusinessLDN chief executive John Dickie says the London business lobby group focused on measures that can boost growth at a low cost when it presented its 21-item wish list to the Chancellor.
“There are things the government can do that won’t cost much money but can make a difference, in the short term and the long term to the growth rate of the economy and can add to the amount of money the exchequer gets in terms of revenue,” Dickie told the Standard.
“There are some things that are very difficult unless you’re willing to spend a lot of money, but equally there’s some low-hanging fruit out there and that’s our starting point.”
The group has been calling on the Government to finally pick some of those low-hanging fruits for quite some time. VAT-free shopping, for instance - the first of BusinessLDN’s 21 proposals - has been brought up repeatedly since Jeremy Hunt got rid of the plan upon becoming Chancellor.
Dickie says some of the obstacles to bringing the policy back are political.
“There’s two things,” he says. “The first is that the Prime Minister was chancellor when this was originally cancelled, and the current chancellor cancelled it after Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini_Budget. And I think there is an optical element in that there is a wrong way you can ask thwe question to make it sound like somehow this is just a tax break for rich tourists.
“And in some ways, it is a tax break for rich tourists, in the same way that we get that tax break on the continent. But the key thing is it also stimulates growth in tax receipts that makes up for it.”
And politics is likely to loom even larger than usual, with next month’s statement being one of the last chances for the Tory Government to offer policies that could boost voters’ finances before the next election.
Political concerns can always be a risk in advocating for London, but Dickie argues that the proposals presented to Jeremy Hunt are not London-specific policies.
“We are the voice of businesses in London. But we come at this from London being the capital of the United Kingdom, not some kind of city state,” Dickie says. “And the sorts of arguments we are arguing for in London - more certainty for transport services, for example - are pretty similar to the sorts of arguments that the Northern Powerhouse makes.”
Businesses, in his view, understand that.
“One of the joys of working for a business group, and talking to businesses across the country, is that businesses just don’t see it as a zero-sum game,” he says.
“And one of the things we need to do as a country is to get out of this kind of zero-sum games.
One of our big asks, one of our perpetual big asks, is for greater devolution.”
But does the Chancellor see it the same way?
“I think the way the treasury looks at things is that there’s a small amount of money there is to spend and lots of things being asked for, and on that level it’s true.
“But the challenge is how do we leverage that money to get the most out of it.
“So if you look at TfL, they will get a settlement for next year, and for the year after that, and beyond that, but the amount will go up and down.
“If you create certainty then you can create better outputs without spending any more.”
