Letter In The Telegraph Today.

[Khandro]

SIR – We have been manufacturing farm machinery since 1847, employing about 60 skilled engineers. We are owned by our workforce.

Turning over about £10 million, we manage to squeeze out a profit every year, and invest heavily in development, which is why we are still in business.

The Budget will increase our employment costs (report, November 1) by £50,000 a year – that’s money straight off the bottom line, which HMRC cannot take 25 per cent from by way of corporation tax.

Our decision to invest in a new machining centre has now been put on ice, and we await the fallout from our customers, all of whom are farmers. 

Add to this business rates, ridiculous health and safety requirements, crippling final salary pension fund rules, the price of electricity, and the general interference from government in so many aspects of running a private company, and is it any wonder that manufacturing in the UK is on its knees?

In the 47 years I have been a director of the company, I cannot remember having to face such an uncertain future.

Anthony Bone
Chairman, Standen Engineering Ltd
Ely, Cambridgeshire

I guess that says it all.  ?

[Cloverjo]

It does indeed. I voted Labour, but I hate what they've done - or not done - so far. I find it too depressing to read the newspaper now. 

[Untitled]

"ridiculous health and safety requirements"

they are always "ridiculous" until someone gets hurt aren't they

according to its website standen engineering is "Standen Engineering Ltd is owned by its shareholders, most of whom hold key positions within the company" so his implication that the company is owned co-operatively is very misleading. one wonders where else he might be stretching the truth

[Hymie]

If you own a business with an annual turnover of over £10 million, employing 60 skilled people; and you claim that an additional cost of £50k (which would be less than the annual cost of employing an extra employee) is going to significantly affect the business operation – then the company’s finances are already in a very precarious state.

[naomi24]

He could have said 'except the tea boy and the part time cleaner' I suppose - although they are key positions too.  

[drmorgans]

 

And many of these rises and changes are not due to the recent budget but mismanagement by the Tories over the last 14 years.

 

[naomi24]

Hymie, turnover isn't profit.

[Ellipsis]

Many companies are close to bust, and the budget may take them over the edge ... but the reason they're close to bust in the first place is nothing to do with Labour.

[vulcan42]

Hymie, you have conveniently omitted the rest of his letter.

" Add to this business rates, ridiculous health and safety requirements, crippling final salary pension fund rules, the price of electricity, and the general interference from government in so many aspects of running a private company, and is it any wonder that manufacturing in the UK is on its knees?

It's not just the £50,000 is it?

[naomi24]

Sat what you will, the previous government didn't impose the extra costs.

[naomi24]

*say

[Untitled]

i do wonder what health and safety requirements he considers to be "ridiculous" considering that his company deals in heavy machinery (and I doubt Mr Bone does much handling of it himself) . some people always moans about health and safety... until someone gets hurt 

[Hymie]

It’s amazing to me how many have swallowed the right-wing presses nonsense on what a disaster this Labour government are.

From taxing the rich to pay for public services, to the winter fuel payments cut (for some).

 

If you are a pensioner who has missed out on the fuel payment, and a cut in income of less than a pound/day is a significant cut in your income (causing hardship), then you have failed in life.

 

I recently posted that as a result of changes made to my private pension, I effectively lost out on £50k of pension income – this represents over 160 years of personal winter fuel payments.  Not a single person expressed sympathy for me, or offered to set up a ‘go fund me page’.

 

In relation to those who supported Labour, but are now critical of them based on right wing press, they appear to have a very short memory, having forgotten how corrupt/dishonest/incompetent the last 14 years of Tory governments were.

[barry1010]

Today a farming family is devastated by the suicide of their loved one who feared the newly imposed inheritance tax on agricultural land

Farmer is feared to have taken his own life in his barn after Labour's inheritance tax land grab https://mol.im/a/14031987 via https://dailym.ai/android

[Khandro]

That is only manufacturing, British farmers are in despair also.

Does Reeves and her cohort know anything at all about farming? Apart from having weekend cottages, have they ever lived in a farming community? (I have).

The land on which they farm may be of value, but that doesn't put the bread on the table. Many will have to sell up and the super rich will grab their land, Bill Gates now owns an astonishing amount of land - 250,000 acres of highly productive farmland spread out over 17 states. That is only in the US, he also owns large tranches in Africa and elsewhere.

[drmorgans]

How many farms will be affected by Budget tax rises?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8rlk0d2vk2o

 

[Khandro]

^^  So, it's only 500 farms then ? well that's no problem (unless of course you happen to be one of them), and how do they know the individual cucumstances of each farmer?

The Beeb's 'verifying service' puts up a ridiculous number claimed by an MP of farms effected, and then drastically reduces, it so all's well.  🙄 

[Ken4155]

From your 08:46 link, Barry.

"However, the Farmer's Union (NFU) told the Sun it could not confirm whether the clams were true."

The post was written anonymously (supposedly in order to protect the author's children??) so it could be true. Then again........

[naomi24]

//Hundreds of angry farmers to hold protest in London over Labour’s ‘death tax’ on their land//

 

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/farmers-london-westminster-labour-rachel-reeves-inheritance-tax-land-b1191572.html

 

 

As Rishi Sunak said, Rachel Reeves may have been an economist but she knows nothing about business - and quite honestly I don't think any of them do.  If they did they wouldn't have done what they've done.

[Canary42]

So suddenly a letter from a Company who aren't competitive enough to survive in the Private Sector is used by the Tory Newspaper to criticise the Labour Government - you couldn't make it up.

[naomi24]

//you couldn't make it up.//

 

You could - but no one has.