The day after tomorrow...
The business news that matters
Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Off to Lunch…
It’s the day after the Autumn Statement, an Autumn Statement that saw the chancellor speak optimistically about growth and tax cuts in the future. Jeremy Hunt has been visiting Airbus’s factory in North Wales today - one of the most high-tech manufacturing sites in Europe - and said there could be more tax cuts for households and businesses in the future...
The day after the Autumn Statement or any big fiscal event for the government involves the Resolution Foundation and Institute for Fiscal Studies, two of the UK’s leading economic think tanks, delivering their verdict on what the chancellor proposed. It also sees businesses offering their feedback after having the opportunity to look at the fine print.
A reminder that you can find a summary of what was announced in the Autumn Statement by checking-out yesterday’s Off to Lunch here
Below are some of the key points from the reports by the Resolution Foundation and the IFS…
In terms of the other reaction, large retail and leisure groups are frustrated that they will miss out on a cut to their business rates bill. This is because the discount only effectively applies to independent businesses. You can read more in a story by the Financial Times here. However, the chart below from the IFS shows that the measures announced by the chancellor represent a big saving for many businesses…
Hunt also announced in his speech that the government will provide £500 million to fund innovation centres that can help to make the UK “an AI powerhouse”. Documents published alongside the Autumn Statement reveal an update to the government’s National Quantum Strategy too.
This update includes setting long-term goals that have got the tech industry excited because of how ambitious they are. The document says that by 2035 there should be “accessible, UK-based quantum computers capable of running 1 trillion operations and supporting applications that provide benefits well in excess of classical supercomputers across key sectors of the economy” and that the UK “will have deployed the world’s most advanced quantum network at scale, pioneering the future quantum internet”. You can find the government’s document on this here and an analysis by Tech Monitor’s Quantum Untangled newsletter here
As Dom Hallas, the executive director of the Startup Coalition, outlines below, the Autumn Statement looks to have been particularly positive for tech start-ups…
One last thing I wanted to flag, Sophia Gaston at Policy Exchange, the think tank, has provided a useful summary of Lord Harrington’s review of how the UK can attract more foreign investment. That report was published alongside the Autumn Statement (you can find it here) and - crucially - the chancellor has said that he accepts its main recommendations. Perhaps the most important conclusion of that report is this…
Podcast…
I am delighted to say that we launched our new podcast episode this morning. The new episode of Business Leader tells the story of the Crown Estate, a truly unique organisation, and speaks to its chief executive Dan Labbad about how he went from Sydney to St James's in London and is trying to deliver the Crown Estate's purpose of "creating lasting and shared prosperity for the UK".
In the episode we look at the Crown Estate's remarkable £16 billion collection of assets, how Dan Labbad's approach to management has been shaped by the discrimination his Egyptian father suffered in Australia, and why nudging the world in the right direction rather than trying to change it could be the best approach to management.
You can listen via Substack here, Spotify here and Apple Podcasts here
Business Leader is the new name for the Business Studies podcast and a new format for those who listened to The Business Leader Podcast in the past. You can find all previous episodes by clicking the image below…
Other stories that matter…
1. Nissan is expected to deliver a big boost for the UK manufacturing industry on Friday by announcing that new electric versions of its Qashqai and Juke models will be made at its factory in Sunderland. The investment from the Japanese company is worth as much as £1 billion and will protect 6,000 jobs, according to a story by the BBC here
2. A UK company is looking to revolutionise the way that parcels are delivered by using an Uber-style model with local couriers. Relay has raised $10 million (£8 million) of funding from venture capital investors including Project A Ventures. Story by TechCrunch here and more details on Relay here
3. Sticking with tech, hiring across the tech industry in Europe has fallen by 40 per cent in 2023, according to a new report by Ravio, which provides data on pay. This slowdown is evidence of the wider economic challenges and the difficulties that businesses have had raising new money from investors. Story by Sifted here
4. Stephen Bush has written an interesting column for the Financial Times about how Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer are not learning the right lessons from the coalition government. It’s a piece that emphasises the importance of any organisation learning the right lessons from history, a topic that our Business Leader podcast explores in detail. “Neither party has even come close to accepting just how radical and significant the Cameron-Clegg government really was,” Bush writes. You can read the piece here
5. $500,000 a year. That is how much the millennial generation says they need to earn each year to guarantee their happiness, according to a new survey in the US. That is nearly double what older generations said they need (and equivalent to around £400,000 in the UK). The survey was conducted by insurance group Empower, which said that millennials are seeking more money because they are struggling to afford property and their careers have been impacted by the fall-out from the 2008 financial crisis. You can read more on the survey from CBS here
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Best
Graham