IT was perhaps appropriate that, as the 2017 Ashes series between England and Australia gets underway, Chris Parr used a cricket analogy to sum up the lack of financial leeway Philip Hammond faced as he prepared the Autumn Budget.
Mr Parr, group finance director at plant hire specialist GAP Group, said the “fragility” of the economy, partly caused by Brexit uncertainty, meant Hammond did not have “much room to swing the bat” as he looked to improve the UK’s finances.
Indeed, speaking ahead of the Budget, Mr Parr suggested that a Chancellor of the Exchequer has “never had a backdrop so capricious with Brexit and constitutional rumbling north of the Border.”
In the end, Mr Parr was pleased to see that Hammond did not renege on the Government’s commitment to cut corporation tax from the current 19 per cent to 17 per cent by 2020. He said the gradual reduction of the tax has helped GAP, which employs 1,600 staff, to invest.
“We are a profitable business and it has been a real advantage,” Mr Parr added. “It allows us to plan for the long term.”
Equally, Mr Parr gave a broad welcome to the Government’s commitment to invest in improving the UK’s infrastructure, with the Chancellor signalling yesterday that progress is being made on delivering city deals for Tay Cities and Stirling, and a growth deal for the “Borderlands”.
As well as improving connectivity for businesses, Mr Parr said investment in big infrastructure projects also has positive effects on economies local to where the work is carried out.
“From what I have seen from some of the city deals in the past, that’s just the type of frontline funds that do make a difference, and will deliver infrastructure and boost the economy,” he said. “We’ll have to see the detail of that, but I think that’s a very welcome step.”
Mr Parr added: “The devil is always in the detail in terms of when that is likely to kick in, and what conditions, if any, are attached to that. Providing there are low and easy to achieve hurdles, that should be very good news.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here