Jeremy Hunt’s budget announcements yesterday are being seen as not going far enough to support the event industry. Also, the budget is lacking when it comes encouraging sustainability. So far, Venue Directory and beam have issued statements.
Michael Begley, managing director of Venue Directory commented…
“As a committed advocate of increasing sustainability, I was disappointed that there was so little new investment to help us save the planet and nothing that would directly encourage more sustainable behaviour in the our industry.
While I welcome £20bn towards carbon capture, usage and storage, and the £8.8bn over five years towards city region sustainable transport, we need this to be nationwide. What we really need is more incentives to encourage best practice and change behaviours, at home and in business.”
Simon Richards, Finance Director of beam and Managing Director of Convenus commented…
“We called upon the Chancellor to provide support more specifically appropriate to our industry and its issues and there was none. That highlights again the need for everyone to support the work of all those who are endeavouring to build within government awareness and understanding of our industry and its distinctive issues. The SIC codes are increasingly important in this.
We specifically wanted help with recruiting more young people into the industry and to address staff shortages. We welcome the new concept of Returnerships and the expansion of Childcare provisions as both of these may well bring new people into our industry where they will be trained and also bring back experienced staff.
However initiatives such as the Events Apprenticeships scheme are vital to the future of our industry but they need government seed money to kick start them and a re-think on how the levy works. It is disappointing that there isn’t any consideration in the Budget for this.”
Thanks to Chris Lewis of Clareville for the statements. Picture by Simon Walker, No 10 Downing Street (Open Government Licence).