NEWS
4 ASIAN TRADER 29 NOVEMBER 2024
Ministers are being urged to
impose taxes on packaged
foods containing high salt and
sugar.
In a plea addressed to the
chancellor, Rachel Reeves, and
the health secretary, Wes
Streeting, representing 35
health groups, Anna Taylor, the
executive of the Food Founda-
tion, among others, highlight-
ed that taxing unhealthy foods
such as cakes, sweets, biscuits,
crisps and savoury snacks
would generate billions of
pounds for the Treasury and cut
the number of people becom-
ing ill as a result of a bad diet.
She said, “The damage the
food industry is doing to
children’s health is the biggest
threat to our nation’s wellbeing
and future productivity and this
needs to be reined in – urgently.
“Voluntary reformulation
programmes for sugar, salt and
calories are not proving
efective enough, achieving
only a 3.5% reduction in sugar
levels of key product catego-
ries, compared to the mandato-
ry soft drinks industry levy
(sugar tax), which has achieved
a reduction in total sales of
34.4% between 2015 and
2020.”
Ministers under pressure
to tax unhealthy foods
Post-budget blues
he nation has now had almost a month to digest the
effects of Rachel Reeves’s autumn budget state-
ment, and instead of the depressing effects wearing
off, as is normal, it appears that many and varied groups are
becoming more dissatisfied and angrier as time passes and
the consequences sink in. For the convenience channel, it
is the estimated £660 million that it will have to cough up
through higher wages and lower National Insurance
thresholds to satisfy the appetites of Whitehall.
But it is all businesses that are feeling the pain, with a
certain multiple claiming that the new measures will cost it
£1 billion over the lifetime of the government (assuming it
lasts its full term). A generation-rent crisis looks to be in the
offing after landlords were put to the sword, and revolution
is brewing among farmers – headed by a broom-wielding,
bucket-helmeted Jeremy Clarkson, perhaps.
The newspapers are peppered with stories about
companies that are already being forced to close down, and
that’s before the PM’s recent announcement that Council
Tax will be going up over 5% next year, or nearly three
times the rate of inflation – if you believe the inflation
figures.
Inheritance tax means that those with serious pension
pots feel they need to spend it now instead of pouring their
life-savings into the NHS to meet an infinitely growing and
ever-more-expensive demand for treatment. What’s
worse, that “spend-now-or-lose-the-lot” attitude could
easily lead to further inflationary pressure as demand
spikes and imports grow, destroying the UK’s already
shaky balance of payments.
Analysts are now saying that increasing taxes so steeply
is going to stifle investment and therefore growth, making
our debts even more onerous, and relying on Ed Miliband’s
windmills will make our electricity – already the most
expensive of any advanced economy and fully twice the
cost of America’s – even dearer.
And that’s before we attempt to thaw out the pension-
ers whose winter fuel payments were turned off.
Meanwhile, as the UK spins its way towards the event
horizon in a doom-loop of taxing and spending, President
Trump is headed back to the Whitehouse on a clean sweep
of Congress, promising to light fires under the US economy
and cut taxes in a dash for growth.
In convenience, we have particularly to fear the Tobacco
and Vapes Bill (announced on 5 November, and even more
draconian than the Conservatives’ version that had been
pending). In this issue, our intrepid reporter Pooja Shrivas-
tava talks to independent retailers across the country, to
canvas their opinion of the upcoming legislation, and to
hear why they do not think it will be useful or kind to
storeowners.
This is not a party-political rant; it is more that legisla-
tion from any political party seems to be growing more
ideological and less tolerant of real-world conditions and
the hardships to which their high-flown principles subject
ordinary people. It is almost as if, moving from university
to think-tank to Westminster, the political class is growing
out of touch with the people ...
The government let bureaucra-
cy get in the way of redress for
wronged sub postmasters,
former business secretary Kemi
Badenoch told the Post Ofce
Inquiry.
She said that during her time
as business secretary, she and
former postal afairs minister
Kevin Hollinrake “wanted to
get the money out there” but
were constantly given reasons
why they could not by ofcials.
Questioned by Jason Beer
KC about who allowed bureau-
cracy to get in the way, Baden-
och replied: “Well, the govern-
ment machine. I think I
remember asking a question
like, ‘Why can’t we just give
them the money?’”
Badenoch also told the
inquiry that she had been
determined to speed up the
whole process of compensa-
tion.
“What I was seeing, the way
the Department [of Business
and Trade] and the Post Ofce
was going on we’d never get to
the end of it. I had my own
objective of making sure we did
right by the sub-postmasters.”
Badenoch added that the
Post Ofce would have “disap-
peared in its current form long
ago” if it was a private organisa-
tion, adding that it is a
“20th-century organisation
that is struggling to evolve in a
21st-century world.”
Badenoch also stated that it
was “extremely disappointing”
that it took an ITV drama about
the Post Ofce scandal to get the
government to accelerate
compensation for wrongly
convicted postmasters.
“I was not expecting the doc-
umentary [Mr Bates vs the Post
Ofce] in January, which helped
speed things along. It turned
from a value-for-money to a
public perception question.”
Tory leader says compensation delays fault of Whitehall
Badenoch blames civil
Badenoch blames civil
servants for Horizon scandal
servants for Horizon scandal