BPF responds to UK Government Spring Statement

UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak delivered his Spring Statement yesterday (23 March) in which he proposes to help UK households by introducing a five per cent cut in fuel duty and an increase in salary before National Insurance Contributions (NICs).

Inflation has soared by 6.2% during the month of February, which brought forth criticism from national newspapers. The Daily Telegraph ran with the headline ‘The biggest fall in living standards on record’, and the Daily Express saying that ‘[m]illions of Britons without a helping hand from Rishi Sunak’s mini-budget’.

The statement has drawn criticism from opposition parties and NGOs too, including Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who tweeted: ‘Today was the day for the Chancellor to set out a plan to support British businesses.

‘Instead, he failed to face up [to] the scale of the challenge.’

Speaking to the BBC’s Politics Live, Lib Dem Leader Sir Ed Davey said: "People are drowning with those higher energy bills, those higher food costs, those higher fuel bills. They needed a lifeboat and the chancellor has utterly failed them."

And prominent financial expert and campaigning consumer finance journalist Martin Lewis said: ‘If that's all he's doing on energy - it is limited and won't impact the majority of households who will see a likely £1,300 average increase in year-on-year bills by October. My head has sunk.’

Sunak defended his decisions by tweeting: ‘We’re delivering our promise to match NICs and income-tax thresholds in full, this year. It's the biggest single personal tax cut in over a decade.’

But how will the Spring Statement affect businesses operating within the UK’s plastics industry value chain?

The BPF released a statement of its own in response, which is largely supportive of the measures in the Chancellor’s statement due to a healthy focus on investment in education and training for businesses and their employees.

Cuts to fuel duty for businesses has also been welcomed due to the recent rising fuel and transportation costs, according to the BPF: ‘Business rates relief worth £7bn over the next five years, subsidising the cost of high-quality training and adopting new digital technologies through the respective ‘Help to Grow’ schemes, improving the R&D tax credit system to support investment in innovation and a continuation of the increased Annual Investment Allowance from £200,000 to £1m will also provide much-needed help to UK plastics companies. ‘

The BPF remains committed to helping plastics industry businesses minimise environmental impact and therefore welcomes Sunak’s measures to enable businesses to write-off some of the costs when investing in more efficient machinery and plant upgrades.

‘At a time of uncertainty and well-documented price volatility,’ the BPF statement concludes, ‘reducing the burden on businesses that need to continue investing in innovation to remain internationally competitive while also meeting their environmental obligations is crucial.’