News Item: Public Affairs Update; General Election and Theft & Fraud Reporting
July General Election Update
With a month to go before the UK General Election, the party manifestos have yet to be published. Apart from the expected skirmishes on public spending and taxation, there have been few interventions directly relevant to the hire sector, except on skills.
On this matter Labour has said it will replace the Apprenticeship Levy with a new Growth and Skills Levy. Few details have been released but it is understood that Labour will enable firms to spend up to 50% of their levy contributions on approved non-apprenticeships training, with at least 50% reserved for apprenticeships.
Meanwhile, HAE EHA is seeking a commitment from Labour to implement the extension to Full Expensing (the Conservative Government has said they will extend the allowance to assets purchased for ‘leasing’, but without a timeframe). We have had some initial contact with Labour spokespeople and will follow up.
During a pre-election period, our engagement with civil servants is greatly reduced; however, we have agreed to share information on total numbers of assets held and their value across a sample of hire companies.
Hire Theft & Fraud Developments
The Hire Association has participated in a meeting of the Hire Forum which brings together security and risk professionals from across the hire sector.
A lot of information is shared by the forum members and this, in turn, is used to update a wider group of HAE EHA members via a Google Group. However, the association is looking to replace this arrangement with a new Hire Theft and Fraud Bulletin hosted on the main website. More details on this will follow soon.
In addition, HAE EHA will join a meeting of the donors and supporting organisations for the specialist policing teams (NCATT and ACE). NCATT has published its first public quarterly report on its activities and this is available to download below.
If you have any questions about these updates, other areas of politics or parliamentary lobbying, contact Public Affairs Manager Mark Bradshaw on 0121 380 4621.