The economy
We continue to play a leading role in liaising with government and the Bank of England on the state of the economy, how manufacturing is being impacted by current economic events and what support government can provide to support businesses during the downturn. In separate meetings with David Pinto-Duschinsky, a Special Adviser in HM Treasury and David Blanchflower a member of the Monetary Policy Committee, we highlighted the weakening in confidence across manufacturing and how some sectors had, so far, been harder hit than others by the slowdown in the world economy.
We also discussed the variable impact on manufacturing from the ongoing problems in credit markets. We told them that EEF supported the initial package of measures, which had been announced to support business, and reiterated our call for the Pre-Budget to bring forward further measures to reduce costs for business and provide temporary support for investment. Steve Radley, our Chief Economist, also put forward similar views at the regular meeting of the Business & Enterprise Secretary of State’s Economic Monitoring Panel.
Innovation and Skills
We met the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities & Skills, Rt Hon John Denham MP to discuss a number of current issues. Having briefed him on the state of the economy, we concentrated on skills issues, in particular the role and work on the Commission on Employment & Skills. We believe it will play a significant role in the implementation of the Leitch recommendations and to address key areas of concern for manufacturers, especially the simplification of the cluttered skills landscape.
We also discussed the short term measures announced to help maintain an adaptable workforce, in particular the increased funding for, and greater flexibility of Train to Gain as well as the findings of our soon to be published survey on Higher Education
Pensions
At her request, and as a key player in the area of pensions reform we were asked to brief Rosie Winterton MP, the newly appointed Minister of State for Pensions and the Ageing Society. We used this meeting to outline our main outstanding concerns about the Government's pension reform programme, namely the need for some initial financial support for smaller employers when personal accounts are introduced in 2012 and having a clear Government commitment to a rolling programme of deregulation to support employers with occupational pension schemes.
We also discussed the default retirement age of 65 which we explained our members continue to support and on which we stressed there should be an evidence-based review before a Government decision is made in 2011.
Carbon Emissions
As a key stakeholder with DEFRA we were one of a small number of organisations invited to the launch of a new standard designed to provide business with a consistent way of counting the greenhouse gas emissions embedded in goods and services throughout their entire life cycle.
The standard has been developed to help businesses move beyond managing the emissions their own processes create, and to look at the opportunities for reducing emissions in the design, making and supplying of products to make them less carbon intensive with lower carbon footprints. We have welcomed the launch of the new standard (PAS 2050; 2008) as single consistent and robust framework within which businesses will be able to assess the greenhouse gas emissions of their goods and services in a consistent manner.