Intelligence Briefing - 15 October 2010

Success!

The Prime Minister and Lord Young today launched far-reaching recommendations for reforming health, safety and compensation that address many of the issues on which EEF has campaigned for a number of years.

Earlier this year the PM asked former Trade Secretary, Lord Young, to review the application and perception of health and safety legislation, together with the rise of a compensation culture over the last decade.

We have worked closely with the Review Team and we have been successful in influencing a number of the final recommendations, which were announced at a launch at Number 10 today attended by EEF and others.

In particular Lord Young changed his approach to licensing of health and safety advisors in response to our concerns. His original proposal, that even in-house advisors would be required by law to have degree-level qualifications, would have been excessive and cost industry a great deal. The alternative of a much tougher voluntary accreditation for consultants will help businesses in choosing specialist help without imposing excessive costs.

The report also recommends major simplification of the compensation system to limit legal fees and deter unfounded claims – measures for which EEF originally called in 2006.

For further information read our web briefing, or contact Steve Pointer, Head of Health and Safety Policy.

Help us to lobby the European Parliament on new parental leave costs

Next week the European Parliament is taking a vote that could see a rise in the cost of maternity and paternity leave. This will have a major impact on UK public finances and the chances are that companies may have to pick up the bill.

Although this will not be the final decision - there are a number of stages to go through before this could come into effect - we are asking companies to send this e-mail to all MEPs in their region to urge them to reject the amendments .

The reason for sending to all MEPs is because they do not have individual constituencies like MPs. Instead a number are elected to cover a whole region. To save companies sending multiple e-mails, therefore we suggest that they simply copy one e-mail to all of their relevant MEPs.

You can download a list of e-mail address for MEPs in each region here. If you are not sure which region you are in you can check here.

MEPs are accountable to their constituents, so if you feel strongly about this issue, e-mail them, let them know and ask them how they intend to vote!

If you are able to support this campaign and get a response, let us know by contacting Steve Coventry (scoventry@eef.org.uk). We shall update you on the vote, next week.

Weekly Focus - government supports EEF REACH campaign to the European Commission

As regular readers of Briefing will know, we have been lobbying to delay aspects of the EU’s REACH Chemical Regulations.

The importers and manufacturers of chemicals substances have responsibility for registration under REACH. The deadline for this is 30 November, after which any substances which have not been registered must be withdrawn from the market.

However, the registration process does not require importers/manufacturers to declare their intention to register a particular substance, or its use, in advance. For downstream users, therefore, there is a very real risk that they will only discover they can no longer use certain substances after they should have been withdrawn from the market. And if there is strict interpretation of the regulation, downstream users may have to cease production with limited warning and through no great fault of their own.

In order to minimise the impact of this we have argued for a 12-month period of grace to allow downstream users time to make the necessary adjustments. Our case has now also been supported and taken up by the UK government in a letter to the European Commission (one of the key decision-making bodies on this particular piece of legislation) co-signed by the Business Secretary, Vince Cable MP, and his counterpart at DEFRA, Caroline Spelman MP.

Having the government’s support should help our campaign and we continue to lobby at European level ahead of the 30th November deadline. Initial feedback from the Commission is that they are warming to our proposal for downstream users to continue to receive withdrawn substances whilst an alternative supplier is sought.

We will keep companies updated on developments. For further information contact: Kevin Considine, Senior Climate & Environment Policy Adviser

In the news

The Spending Review is dominating much of our media coverage and our views ahead of the announcement have been covered in a variety of sources including the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail. Our lobbying on REACH, outlined above, also featured in the FT (registration required) while you can read Steve Radley’s latest column in The Manufacturer.

Week in review

	CPI	CPI annual inflation remained unchanged at 3.1% in September, and has now been stable for three months. However, there have been significant upward and downward pressures on inflation in this time. The most noteworthy differences between August and September were a large fall in the cost of air transport and a sizable upwards swing in the price of clothing and footwear. In the year to August, RPI inflation was 4.6%, down from 4.7% in August.
	UK Trade	The trade in goods deficit fell from £8.7bn in July to £8.2bn in August. Exports and imports both fell, though imports fell at a faster rate. The total trade deficit fell from £5.0bn in July to £4.6bn in August.
	BRC retail sales monitor	UK retail sales values were up 0.5% on a like-for-like basis from September 2009. Food sales growth picked up a little. Clothing slowed but footwear sales improved, helped by cold wet weather and new autumn/winter ranges. Furniture and floor coverings was the only sector where sales were actually down on a year ago. Larger purchases in particular were affected by consumer uncertainty over job cuts and income prospects.
	CLG house prices	UK house prices were 8.3% higher than in August 2009 and 0.7% higher than in July 2010 (seasonally adjusted). The mix-adjusted average house price in the UK stood at £213,116 in August.
	Labour Market Statistics	The ILO measure of unemployment fell by 20,000 over the quarter to 2.45 million. The three-month unemployment rate fell to 7.7%. The claimant count measure of unemployment – which records the number of people claiming Job Seekers’ Allowance – rose by 5,300 to 1.47 million, the claimant count rate remains at 4.5%, following a slight rise last month. Despite the rise, there are 144,100 fewer claimants than at this point last year.

The week ahead

Wednesday 20 October: Public sector finances

Thursday 21 October: Retail sales; Trends in lending

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