Fuelled by ignorance

With much of the media this morning seeking to blame the Government for causing a fuel crisis where there wasn't one previously, once again it looks like the Great British Public are unable or unwilling to take any responsibility for themselves. The flames are then fanned by our irresponsible media.

It is true that Downing Street has handled this issue with appalling ignorance and in a blundering and uncoordinated manner. However, it is also clear that a potential strike is at least 11 days off and there is no risk of industrial action over the Easter weekend.

Can we really blame government of whom people take little notice of anyway? Are people so stupid that they blindly follow the media-induced panic propagated by the tabloids? No. There is only one thing that has caused this crisis and that is selfish and ignorant behaviour on the part of individuals.

I wish our great nation would just get a grip and stop blaming everyone else for its problems. Here is some simple advice. If you don't need fuel, don't buy any.

Budget sense on share options

There really are some truly amazing photographs of George Osborne on the web. This one is nearly as good as the one I used when I spotted a hole in the sole if his shoe in Manchester last September.

When the last Government raised the rate of Capital Gains Tax to 28% I was a very vocal critic. The minmimal Entrepreneurs' Relief that followed was a bit of a joke and I remember the Daily Telegraph quoting me at the time as saying, "Thank you Alastair, you've really made my day!".

Fortunately, the Coalition Government saw sense and have raised the limit to a much more meaningful £10m threshold for the lower 10% band to apply, but to me there has always been a problem with this. It is not just the owner of a business who makes it successful and the tax regime has to date only favoured business owners.

I felt that my dedicated staff who have share options should also be able to benefit from this reduced tax rate, but as things stood they would pay 28% and I would only pay 10%. Given that the amounts the high rate would apply to would be generally relatively smaller, this seemed very unfair.

Just after David Cameron came to power, he visited Leeds and I asked him about this issue. He didn't get it and just answered that he thought it was right people should pay tax. I agree with him here, but what I don't agree with is the imbalance and injustice of the two tax rates.

I had another crack at George Osborne in Manchester last September. I am pleased to say that I got a bit further here with George acknowledging the problem and understanding it.

It looks like George has now done something about this, announcing in the Budget that all holders of EMI share options will qualify for Entrepreneurs' Relief.

So George, thank you for listening!

PS. I think the cap on income tax reliefs is going to impact badly on charities, so George, if you are reading this, please exempt gifts to good causes.

Yorkshire Banks

Attending the Yorkshire Mafia Conference in Leeds today was an inspiration. There was a real energy around the event and this combined with some good news for businesses in the Budget led to a general feeling of positivity.

I was part of the Billion Pound Panel. This included a number of key local business leaders: Paul Caplan the owner of Go Outdoors; James Lambert, CEO and Executive Chairman of R&R Ice Cream; Lawrence Tomlinson, Founding Chairman of the LNT Group and Colin Graves, Chairman of Costcutter Supermarkets. According to the Yorkshire Mafia we have combined revenues of more than £1bn. 

We were there to take questions from the audience about their interests and concerns. These ranged from the use of social media to rates of taxation to environmental initiatives. Inevitably the discussion also turned to funding for business and one of the panel had expressed his disbelief at how the banks are currently behaving.

Chairman of the session, the very talented and entertaining Gary Verity, CEO of Welcome to Yorkshire, asked the audience how many of them were happy with the service they received from their bank. Just three people put up their hand. 

I counted over 200 people in the audience. All stakeholders in the local economy and many running local SMEs. 98.5% of them not happy with the service they receive from their bank. 

I would imagine that any other industry with such dire customer satisfaction would be devastated at such a result. Is it possible that banks don't know that there is such a level of dissatisfaction? Are customers too scared to express their real feelings? 

Or is it that they know full well and frankly they are not too bothered about the situation because there is limited competition and for every customer they lose they probably gain another one?

I was shocked by the almost universal extent of this problem but I was not surprised. I could not help thinking that this potentially creates an incredible opportunity for someone to come in and change the game. It can't happen soon enough. 

Are we lacking ambition?

Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union has just advised that the UK recycled 24.8% of its municipal waste during 2010. Allowing for waste which was composted the rate increases to 38.8%.

The rest was either incinerated (12.2%) or landfilled. The amount of municipal waste being landfilled was a shocking 49% of the total - or in other words more than we recycled and composted.

The EU Directive target is a 50% recycling rate by 2020 and whilst the Coalition Government thinks that individual councils should not have to comply with this target, overall the UK still has to reach it. The Environmental Services Association believes it will cost £10bn to £20bn to upgrade the UK's waste infrastructure to achieve this. Yet we could do far more with much less using simple systems, common sense and a bit of ambition.

There are already 75 councils in the UK meeting or beating the 50% target. Many of these are using simple kerbside sort methods to achieve their results. Without an investment in MRFs or expensive and energy hungry processing plants high recycling rates are perfectly possible and the proof is there for everyone to see.

Delivering a kerbside sort model with separate food waste collection, home composting and chargable garden waste collection will result is less residual waste. Put in a bit of educational resource and it gets even better. This will not cost billions, most can be achieved using the existing infrastructure.

The material collected in this way will be of a much higher quality and as a consequence will be worth more money. Keeping everything in the UK instead of shipping to India and China will create jobs and opportunities and will keep increasingly scarce raw materials within our shores.

With the recent Defra consulation on recycling targets, the Campaign for Real Recycling victory over Defra's extrapolation of the EU rules and the forthcoming MRF Code of Practice we have a real opportunity to build a better future with more and higher quality recycling in the UK. Alternatively, we can stick at 50%, burn the rest and burn billions in the process. The right way forward requires clarity of vision and a bit more ambition from our politicians.