From Tim Jones, mouthpiece of so many Tory business groups past and present. But these are effects, not side effects, of Johnson’s “oven ready” deal.

(In Owl’s view Tim Jones is one of a group of old men who have been too influential for too long in the strategic planning of the South West. They represent the historic failure of our local economy to do anything other than bump along the bottom. He now incongruously pops up as Chairman of the Biosphere Foundation)

Tim Jones www.northdevongazette.co.uk

It is now possible to start making a sensible judgement about the impact of our leaving Europe. It does not matter which side of this debate you are on. We made our decision and we are committed to it.

It is however now possible to start seeing whether there have been overall benefits or losses arising. Undoubtedly, many of the benefits will be slow burn and it may not be for 5 or 10 years until we know what progress we have made.

There was much hope that once freed from Europe we would be able to become a global trading partner with many other countries. Inevitably this has been tougher to progress than had been billed. Deals with Australia and New Zealand are being picked over currently and are regarded as having been rushed and therefore not to our benefit.

The deal with Japan has good and bad elements. We are trying to make progress with America but this could take a number of years. There are high hopes that we will join the Pacific Trading Alliance (the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-pacific partnership – this is a free trading block of 11 countries in the indo-pacific region). Here again, however, these are delicate negotiations which can take years to complete.

In the interim, we can now more accurately assess the impact of losing our trading agreement with Europe. Overall it seems that we are down by around 7-8%. We have also lost the significant muscle power that Europe has on the world stage. We have also lost access to a number of really important funding streams, such as, the Horizon Programme which has been valuable for many years to a number of our academic institutions.

We have of course lost (or we think we have lost) the burden of European red tape. The government are trying to capitalise upon this by freeing up many of our financial institutions to allow them to expand into other new world markets. This is important as our financial services sector contribute around 10% of the current countries wealth generation (including tax income).

A slightly unexpected consequence has been the effect on the international labour market, which has been a very important part of supporting many of our businesses, such as, health care, agriculture, hospitality/ tourism. The impact of much tighter visa control has become painfully apparent as we are suffering skills shortages across many sectors and are having to reach out across the world and try to recruit for key skills.

What is alarming however is the slow progress we are making in recruiting homegrown talent. Even more alarming is that, in accordance with a recent institute for management development World Talent Ranking Survey, the UK has become less attractive as a destination for oversea workers.

The survey shows we have slipped 7 places, falling to 28th out of 63 countries. This response has been gathered after contacting around 5,000 executives from these various countries. It shows that the UK is no longer being seen as a particularly favourable destination for international professionals and now ranks behind countries such as Latvia, Cyprus, Estonia and Slovenia. The reasons for this are that there are growing concerns about the UK’s economic situation and education system. Many apparently therefore feel that our quality of life is no longer as attractive as it was. All of this has been fuelled by the Brexit debate. Additional concerns have been expressed about the UK’s rising cost of living (which is not as severe in many other countries) and, importantly, the lack of affordable houses to buy and rent.

This obviously also raises questions about not only how many international workers we can recruit but also our ability to retain the international workforce we have already got. In parallel with this, many companies who are trying to expand are making investment decisions to move with the labour market. This further diminishes the economic prowess of the UK.

The government needs to take a strong grip on this. It will help when we have less political and economic turmoil. Northern Devon has a role in this, in sending out strong messages of welcome to the international labour market and to show that we have an abundance of high growth businesses hungry to expand and huge back-up support, both in innovation and education. This is a great opportunity for Northern Devon to show regional leadership.

Written by Tim Jones, Chairman of the Biosphere

Halting tax cuts given to the banks for just one week could fund food vouchers for 1.9 million children in poverty over Christmas, analysis has revealed.

“…I will place economic stability and confidence at the heart of this government’s agenda. This will mean difficult decisions to come…but I promise you this –  I will bring that same compassion to the challenges we face today…” Rishi Sunak

Adam Forrest www.independent.co.uk

If Rishi Sunak’s government were to ditch the tax cuts for seven days, it would raise enough to feed all the children eligible for free school meals in England during the school break.

Analysis by the Liberal Democrats, shared with The Independent, shows an expected loss to the Treasury of £3.2bn next year from the planned reduction to the bank surcharge on profits and cuts to the bank levy – over £61m per week.

The opposition party said £61m could be used to provide £3 lunch vouchers to children in poverty every weekday over the festive period.

Munira Wilson, the Lib Dems’ education spokesperson, said: “It is completely out of touch for this Conservative government to press ahead with cutting taxes for the big banks.”

“If Jeremy Hunt reversed the cut for just a single week, it would feed millions of children this Christmas. The fact that he is so unwilling to do so proves how completely wrong his priorities are,” she added.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s autumn statement confirmed Mr Sunak’s planned cut to the bank surcharge on profits from 8 per cent to 3 per cent would go ahead from April 2023.

The change and recent cuts to the levy mean banks operating in the UK will pay £18bn less in these taxes over the next five years, according to Lib Dem analysis of data from the Office for Budgetary Responsibility (OBR).

The findings come as MPs and campaigners call for Mr Sunak to expand both free school meal eligibility and funding for holiday programmes.

The Independent has partnered with the Food Foundation for the Feed the Future campaign, calling for an extension of free school meals to all children in households on universal credit.

Around 1.9 million children are currently eligible, but a further 800,000 children in poverty are unable to get free meals because their family’s income – excluding benefits – is more than £7,400 a year after tax.

Last week Labour MP Zarah Sultana introduced a bill that would widen eligibility to all primary school pupils in England. She said the move would guarantee that “every child in England, no matter their background, gets a decent meal each day”.

The call comes amid fears that hundreds of thousands of children in poverty miss out on the patchwork support available through local authorities over the Christmas holiday.

Campaigners’ analysis of the government’s Holiday Activity Fund Programme (HAFP) – which provides funding to councils for vouchers during school breaks – shows it only reached 29 per cent of the 1.9 million children eligible for free school meals.

If the scheme has the same restricted reach again this year, it would leave 1.35 million eligible children without support with meals during the holiday, warned Labour MP Kim Johnson.

Urging Mr Sunak to expand the programme, the MP said: “Give councils the funds necessary to tackle holiday hunger this winter and ensure no child goes hungry.”

The Food Foundation said there was now a “postcode lottery” on which local authorities provided vouchers or other additional support during the holiday.

The Local Government Association said some councils could no longer afford to continue giving vouchers through the government’s Holiday Activity and Food (HAF) scheme.

The Lib Dems’ education spokesperson said the government had been dragged “kicking and screaming” into helping children struggling with food poverty during the Covid pandemic.

“Yet their continued efforts to deny free school meals to 800,000 children proves they either don’t care, or that they still haven’t got the message,” said Ms Wilson.

She added: “Conservative ministers must step up and extend free school meals and roll out food vouchers nationwide – it would cost a fraction of what they spend on vanity projects and helping out their rich friends.”

The MP for Tiverton and Honiton, Richard Foord, has hit out at South West Water over its handling of supply problems during last weekend, December 17 and 18. 

Philippa Davies www.midweekherald.co.uk

Residents in Axminster, Honiton, Seaton and Tiverton were left without water after the change to milder weather caused pipes to burst.   

But information from South West Water was communicated via social media and people reported problems reporting localised faults. 

Mr Foord said many people said they had spent more than an hour on the phone trying to get through to South West Water’s customer service team. He added that the system for reporting problems via the company’s website stopped working after just a few hours. 

The Liberal Democrat MP is now calling for South West Water to ‘shake up its processes’. 

He said: “It’s shocking that at the first sign of trouble South West Water’s whole process seemed to fall apart. We can appreciate the risk posed by a sudden shift in temperatures, but why wasn’t it properly planned for?  

“I had people reaching out to me in anger, confusion or distress over the course of several days. They woke up to find themselves without access to water and found it all but impossible to get a clear answer out of South West Water about what was happening.  

“With South West Water’s phone lines backed-up, and their online reporting channel breaking within hours, the only way anyone could get reliable updates was via social media. It cannot be right that such a vital service only communicates via Twitter. 

“Worse still, it took a long time for support to be mobilised. Emergency water provision was slow to be rolled out, with many vulnerable people reporting they still didn’t have water days after the first outage.” 

On Monday morning (December 19), when some towns and villages were still without water, South West Water confirmed that compensation payments of £30 per 12 hours of outage will be issued to affected customers. However, these payments can take up to 20 working days to arrive.   

Mr Foord is urging South West Water to change the way it responds to these incidents by setting up a dedicated emergency phoneline to report faults, paying compensation more quickly, and investing properly in local water infrastructure to stop these problems at their source.