Responding to the
Chancellor’s Budget speech, Jonathan Geldart, Director General of
the Institute of Directors, said:
“This was a box-office Budget. Given the
circumstances, the Chancellor had to be bold, and he came through
for business today.
“With the coronavirus outbreak threatening a cashflow
crunch, measures to cut costs and support loans to businesses are
on the money. Wider reliefs around business rates and job taxes
will also buoy firms as they look to weather Covid-19’s
implications.
“The Chancellor is going ‘all-in’ on infrastructure.
Directors have long been crying out for transport and digital
upgrades, but this doesn’t mean there can be a blank cheque. The
question now is how we translate that money into real
improvements for local economies.
“Directors will welcome the Government fleshing out
its framework for reaching the ambitious Net Zero target, but the
scale of the economic transition is still being sketched out.
Efforts to ramp up R&D will be crucial to help businesses
reset for the long-term challenges ahead. The other key component
needed to future-proof our economy, skills, is moving in the
right direction but still needs development.
“The necessary focus on coronavirus does not mean
other challenges have gone away. The costs of Brexit adjustment
are still very real, but measures to help firms with the
difficult task of preparing were notable by their absence.
Without a genuine implementation period, companies cannot hope to
be ready on their own for changes they can’t yet see,
particularly with all attention currently on coronavirus.
Pressing on with IR35 despite the manifest problems will also
cause headaches among the business community, and while
Entrepreneurs Relief seems to have few friends, it is described
by many IoD members as a reasonable reward for entrepreneurial
risk-taking.”
Previous survey
results
920 respondents, conducted between 28 Feb – 9 March
2020
What level of threat do you think coronavirus
(COVID-19) poses to your organisation?
|
No threat
|
5%
|
|
Low threat
|
30%
|
|
Moderate threat
|
43%
|
|
High threat
|
16%
|
|
Severe threat
|
5%
|
|
Don't know/NA
|
2%
|
Previous survey results:
1008 respondents, conducted between 19-29 November
2019.
Thinking of your
primary organisation, which of the following policy areas should
be immediate priorities for the new
Government?
|
Preparing/supporting businesses through
Brexit
|
37%
|
|
Skills & Training
|
33%
|
|
Incentives for business
investment
|
31%
|
|
Reducing the regulatory burden/delaying
regulatory changes
|
31%
|
|
Digital infrastructure
|
30%
|
|
Transport infrastructure
|
30%
|
|
Reducing business rates
|
26%
|
|
Lowering taxes on employment
|
24%
|
|
Lowering taxes on business
profits
|
20%
|
|
Other
|
11%
|
|
Don't know
|
0%
|
Relative to current levels do you think
government spending over the next parliament should
–
|
Increase significantly
|
28%
|
|
Increase slightly
|
49%
|
|
Stay roughly the same
|
13%
|
|
Decrease slightly
|
4%
|
|
Decrease significantly
|
4%
|
|
Don't know
|
2%
|
