News & Opinions

Governments have traditionally used the congested schedule in the run up to the Christmas break to deliver difficult news, safe in the knowledge that the news agenda will have moved on when Government attention returns to it in the New Year. However, we can be confident that this fate will not befall the Vickers Report.

A Liberal Democrat priority enshrined in the Coalition Agreement, Vickers was tasked with ensuring that there could not be a repeat of the 2008 bank failures that led to a £66bn public bailout. Crucially, the focus was not on avoiding bank failures, but on ensuring that resolution of any further bank failures was as manageable as possible – thereby limiting the exposure of the public purse. Released in September, the Vickers Report sets out three sets of measures to avoid public financing of bank bailouts.

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As the political dust settles over UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s withdrawal from new EU Treaty negotiations last Friday morning, we can begin to discern the impact on the single market, especially for financial services – the protection of which was ostensibly the rationale for the British “veto” in the first place.

To a large extent, Cameron’s political capital over the next few days depends in large part on his performance. Initial backbench Conservative (and associated media) commentary has been very supportive. That said, very real questions about where this leaves the UK’s international competitive position remain. The answers will very much determine the UK’s role in Europe and the future of the Conservative Liberal Democrat coalition Government.

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A major part of David Cameron’s modernisation plan for the Conservative Party was to heal their internal rift over Europe. This rift stemmed from the Conservative rebellion against UK Prime Minister John Major over the 1992 Maastricht Treaty – a formative political experience for both Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne. In this they largely succeeded by producing a Eurosceptic party in which opposition to anything that hinted at federalism assumed the level of a litmus test amongst activists; the 2010 intake of Conservative MPs are amongst the most Eurosceptic to date. This was a purely domestic project, in which the implications for the UK’s influence in the EU were largely ignored.

However, with the formation of the coalition, the European faultline running through government is if anything more significant than at the time of Maastricht. The Liberal Democrats are avowedly pro-Europe, and see the EU as entirely consistent with their internationalist and regionalist approach – a position that evokes a range of emotions from bewilderment to rage amongst their Conservative counterparts.

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Fleishman-Hillard was delighted to host Baroness Mary Goudie and US Ambassador Luis CdeBaca at our Business Breakfast on human trafficking. Ambassador CdeBaca is Ambassador-at-Large at the US Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, and was in the UK as part of an international initiative to build business expertise on human trafficking. Baroness Goudie is a member of the House of Lords and an advocate on the rights of women and children. She works with the UN on Trafficking, is a member of the Vital Voices board and also writes a blog covering this and related issues.

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In his speech to Parliament on Tuesday, the Chancellor very clearly said that he was adjusting the bank levy rate from 0.075% to 0.088% ‘to raise £2.5 billion each and every year’. The coalition originally introduced the levy in (Emergency) Budget 2010; table 2.1 (‘the scorecard’, as it is known in the Treasury) of that Budget document clearly shows projected yield rising to £2.5 billion in 13/14, declining slightly in 14/15 due to behavioural effects. These are the numbers HMT – and therefore the Office for Budgetary Responsibility – will have put into their fiscal forecast. It would therefore be reasonable to assume that, when the Chancellor says that he is merely changing the fraction to ensure he raises the money he originally put into the forecast in 2010, this would not need further notification in the Budget document, because it’s not actually ‘new’ money – the Treasury are just making an existing tax more effective. (This is, incidentally, why avoidance measures do not score as revenue and feature as such in the Budget – because they are intended to protect money already baked into the forecast, rather than as separate revenue raising measures themselves.) Given this, one might well ask why the Treasury has therefore scored the new 0.088% rates as raising around an extra £300 million annually from 2012/2013 – does this mean the bank levy now yields £2.8 billion annually, instead of the £2.5 billion claimed by the Chancellor?

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Randall Stephenson, CEO and President of AT&T being awarded CEO of the Year at the World Communications Awards 2011

I recently attended the 13th annual World Communications Awards (WCA) as a guest of Total Telecom. The evening, which was held at The London Hilton on Park Lane, brought together over 55 global key telecom players to celebrate high standards of innovation within the communications and telecoms industry. Total Telecom, one of the most influential UK telecom publications, organised the event and presented 18 awards throughout the evening.

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First boomers. Now Seniors. According to newly released data from the Labour Force Survey, internet adoption is increasing for those in Great Britain over the age of 75. The Internet Access Quarterly Update 2011 Q3, is the third in a series of studies released by the Office for National Statistics focusing on adult internet users and non-users in the UK. The Update focused on gender, disability and earnings – but the data around digital adoption among those over the age of 75 was perhaps the most compelling.  

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All is not well in the world of General Practice.  A year on from being surprised, and then opposed, to the Government’s NHS reforms attention is now turning to one of the more explicit policies in the Coalition Agreement, – the commitment to ensure more GPs work in areas of deprivation.

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“This whole strategy is just worthless, regurgitated, patronising rubbish.”

This damning judgment of Andrew Lansley’s recent plan to curb the UK’s obesity problems comes from Jamie Oliver, the international poster-boy of responsible, healthy-eating. The Health Secretary’s ‘call to action’ includes asking the food and drinks industries to take greater action to encourage healthier eating and cutting the calorie count in their products. In addition, he will attempt to persuade people to exercise more.

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I recently attended a roundtable event at the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation (CSFI) on the subject of ‘Financial Services and Young Adults.’

Held in the impressive Armourers’ Hall in the City of London, the walls adorned with coats of arms and historic artwork, the division between the ‘adults’ and the ‘young people’ (a diverse group of 19-26 year olds) was apparent from the offset. The audience, from members of the BBA to other PRs and journalists shuffled to their seats, glasses of wine in hands, ready to give the youngsters a grilling.

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