Member Article

Yorkshire and George Osborne’s Budget 2014

A breakdown of what the budget will mean for Yorkshire.

• Apprenticeships Grant for Employers (AGE) will be expanded in 2014-15 and extended to 2015-16. This will build on 4,180 apprenticeship grant payments up to July 2013.
• Extending the Help to Buy: Equity Loan scheme to 2020. The scheme has already supported 1,534 purchases of new homes in Yorkshire and Humber.
• £140m floods package will include repairs to the river bank at Reedness in East Yorkshire, protecting 200 homes and Keadby power station.

For businesses:

• Every business in Yorkshire and Humber will be affected by the capping of the carbon price support rate announced today. Particularly energy intensive industries will also benefit from compensation for higher energy costs caused by government energy policy. They include AMG Aluminium UK Ltd, INEOS Manufacturing Hull Ltd, Sonoco Cores and Paper Ltd, Weidmann Whiteley Ltd.

• 21 Combined Heat & Power Plants (CHP) plants in Yorkshire and Humber are likely to benefit from Government support announced in the Budget. They include BASF, University of Leeds, Leeds Tea Transport, Nufarm UK Ltd.

• The business energy package in total will be worth at least £669 million in Yorkshire and Humber.

• Announced at last year’s Budget and starting this April, the new Employment Allowance will offer £2,000 cash to up to 91,000 employers in Yorkshire and Humber.

• Businesses in Yorkshire and Humber will also benefit from the doubling of the annual investment allowance to £500,000 until the end of 2015.

• £20m Regional Air Connectivity Fund will encourage airlines to start flying new routes from regional airports to increase connectivity and boost local economies, includes Leeds Bradford and Doncaster Sheffield airports

Roger Marsh, Chair of the Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership commented:“I am encouraged that additional funding has been made available to support businesses to export.

“Connecting our businesses to their specialised markets is vital to maintain good growth and the £20m Regional Air Connectivity Fund, to support new routes from Leeds Bradford airport, will support the work we are already doing to enhance the international connectivity of the region.

On the issue of business rates, Paul Davinson, director in Rating in JLL’s Leeds office, added: “The Chancellor’s announcement to extend the deadline by which businesses will need to have located in an Enterprise Zone in order to claim business rate discounts to 31 March 2018 is warmly welcomed.

“However this is a missed opportunity to announce a fundamental reform of the business rate system and align it with other tax policies announced today, such as using the same principle as the personal tax allowance and remove the smallest assessments from liability altogether.

Richard Wackett, head of Business Rates at Lambert Smith Hampton, said: “The Chancellor announced that this is a budget for ‘makers, doers and savers’, but what about commercial property landlords, developers and occupiers?

“George Osborne’s decision to extend the business rate discounts for companies in enterprise zones is a welcome move but it isn’t enough to help the wider commercial property market.

“The 100% charge to owners of empty commercial and industrial buildings has left the most buoyant sectors without high quality, grade A accommodation – in Leeds city centre, there is currently just under 200,000 sq ft of grade A office space, representing approximately nine months supply, and in Sheffield the figure is even lower at 156,000 sq ft.

“As such, businesses have been forced to make do with poorer second hand stock, which is slowing the economic recovery and pushing up rents.

A spokesperson for Armstrong Watson comments: “He started out by delivering the normal raft of statistics that tell us that things have been somewhat better than expected – but that our economic problems are not yet behind us.

“Borrowing would be less than previously predicted and expected to show a small surplus in 2018/19.

“We were told that growth for the 2013 year at 1.8% was triple the original forecast.

“Growth for 2014, originally expected to be 1.8% has been revised upwards to 2.7% although it would then fall slightly would fall slightly before increasing to 2.6% in 2016 and 2017.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Clare Burnett .