Budget wishlist: “Speculate to accumulate”

In a few hours this will be a done deal, over for another year.  But it’s worth reflecting on what we at Galia Digital would like to see in the 2013 budget.  Top of the list: infrastructure projects, so B2B work filters down the supply chain and consumers have jobs and money to spend. Both will bring tax back onto the treasury. But will the Chancellor dare to speculate to accumulate?

The current downturn is now the longest in living memory.  56 months in, and the economy is 3% smaller than it was at the start.  Even the Great Depression saw the economy back on its feet within this time.  Businesses and individuals have had a hard time of it, and the government’s austerity measures have hit everyone.  This is not a criticism of the cuts we have seen: there has been a lot of dead wood removed from bureaucracy, businesses who have survived are leaner and fitter and standing on their own two feet, and there is real confidence starting to bubble up at grass roots.  But all this lean, fit, confident business cannot bootstrap the economy back up on its own.

At Galia Digital, we deal with businesses selling to consumers and to the trade, from homeworkers to £15m turnover operations.  What one thing could deliver benefits to all our customers?  The Chancellor should take a deep breath and put his hand in his pocket for top level project investment.  Spending millions on a large project is not something to be decried.  When funding was announced last year for the space programme, there was an outcry: but as a sensible voice pointed out, the money was not actually being spent in space.  It was being spent here on earth, paying wages, paying businesses all down the supply chain, improving business and personal wealth, and ultimately returning revenue to the treasury in the form of income and corporation tax.

Interviewed by ITV’s Ben Chapman yesterday, members of the Business Club were unanimous in a wish for investment to create momentum in the economy.  Brendan Flattery of Sage, Nas Khan of Jennings Ford, Janet Hopkinson of Sanderson Young property consultants and Kate Baucherel of Galia Digital delivered the same message: it’s time to get things moving.  Infrastructure and innovation are the building blocks of the economy. Watch the full report here.

Now we can only wait, and hope that 2013 delivers the recovery we all need.