ED: Apologies for the delay on this- Covid-19 ended up rather dominating things towards the end of last week. 

Last week’s budget was, as we said in our quick summary on the day, a budget of two halves. The first part designed to bring in measures to support the ongoing fight against the coronavirus, and the second to begin to implement the agenda promised by Boris Johnson in his election manifesto. Beneath the surface though, there were many more parts. A government preparing for an imminent recession, an economy preparing for the change after the end of the transition period post-Brexit and, of course, many promised consultations.  

 It is the last of these that we are most interested in. By our count, there were 32 ‘hard’ promises of consultation, as in statements in the vein of “we will consult on this”, and a plethora of other statements that will almost certainly incur some form of consultation before they are fully implemented. Most of them are highly technical and functional endeavours, however we have picked out some of the more interesting ones for further discussion here. 

Possibly the single most wide-ranging consultation promise was on the new Regulatory Reform Initiative, launched with the Budget to “reduce regulatory barriers for businesses and ensure that regulation is sensible and proportionate now that the UK has left the EU.” With the volume of regulatory powers returning from the EU to the UK after Brexit being nothing short of colossal, this initiative should prove very interesting to keen consultation watchers as we see what sort of paths industry and business believe we should take. As the government may find out, massively changing regulations could be incredibly expensive, not just for business and industry who have to adjust to new ways of working, but also to the Government itself, who have to increase funding to regulators. What will be very interesting is what happens in those sectors that might declare that they do not want any regulatory change. Will the Government push for symbolic change to take us further from Europe, or will they accept the assessment of business and accept alignment? 

By far the largest number of pledges fall under the broad ‘economy’ heading (over half of them). Several of these relate to VAT and duty changes after the Brexit transition period, very important for everyone, but especially for those in industries with a heavy international trade element. Curiously one of these consultations is couched in terms of being an ‘informal’ consultation. We think it will be very interesting to see exactly what this entails. Are they talking about a pre-consultation engagement process? As of yet, it is not clear. They should possibly be cautious though lest they are seen to be attempting to evade the scrutiny required of a proper public engagement exercise. 

Possibly the most interesting of the economic consultations is the one on the replacement of the Retail Price Index (RPI) used as a measure of inflation by the Office of National Statistics. Long criticised as not meeting the appropriate international statistical standards, the RPI is still used by the Treasury to calculate certain index-linked tax rises. In recent years though, criticism has been mounting, including from Mark Carney, the now-former Governor of the Bank of England, and it looks likely that the Treasury will be moving to a different measure soon. 

 One of Boris Johnson’s big promises during the election campaign has been that he would ‘level up’ the economy, and his co-option of ideas and terminology from the digital sphere has also found a more substantive place in the budget. There are three promised consultations in the digital sector, two of them dealing with the regulation of ‘cryptoassets’, things such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, which have become popular amongst investors but which largely fall outside of the usual regulatory and tax regimes. As the digital world moves and develops so much faster than the material one, it has often proved difficult to regulators to adequately keep up with rapidly evolving technologies and changes. It should be very interesting to see what responses from the public they get, and how they deal with often contradictory views about rapidly changing areas.   

The environment remains one of the major issues, and we were rather surprised to see a fairly limited number of consultations in the Budget relating to the topic. Only two directly related to environmental improvements, with a further two relating to taxation related climate measures. The introduction of a ‘green gas levy’ as an attempt to increase the proportion of green gas in the National Grid, and the development of a new grant scheme to help households and small businesses invest in biomass boilers and heat pumps are the leading pledges, however diving down into the small-print we find promises to create at least two carbon capture and storage sites by 2030. Although not directly linked to promised consultations, these sites would certainly require consultation as major infrastructure projects, as would the promised carbon capture and storage power plant. Although the budget does not seem at first glance to be a very green one, it follows on from the consultations launched recently on phasing out petrol and diesel cars. What will they be repaced with? Well, the budget seems to anticipate that it will be electric cars. Another ‘soft consultation’ promise is for a “comprehensive electric vehicle charging infrastructure review”, which it is hoped will mean that no driver is more than 30 miles from a charging point.  An optimistic target, certainly, backed by £500m from the Treasury. 

But what of the ‘soft consultation’ promises, these being the ones that whilst it is not overtly stated will involve consultation are ones that we deem likely to be of particular note for consultors? The headline ones here are probably around healthcare. A repetition of the promise for forty new hospitals provides the most obvious healthcare example of something that will require extensive consultation without being a specific pledge. The desire to create 50 million more GP surgery appointments is likely to require consultation, if only to find out where the extra time is coming from and what capacity for expansion the system has. 

Outside of healthcare, there are extensive plans in transport, both from providing funding to local authorities for city-based transport schemes and to Combined Authorities for integrated transport plans. Major  road upgrades are also planned, including the ever-controversial A303, which passes through the Stonehenge World Heritage Site. So controversial is this particular pledge that governments have been making, and then failing to deliver on it since the 1980s. The controversy is not likely to abate any time soon. 

For planners, the promise to increase housing supply bodes well for consultation, including for local authorities and combined authorities dealing with brownfield sites, who are getting a bit of a bung from the Treasury as part of the Affordable Homes Programme. Speaking of combined authorities, the Government has finally agreed the devolution deal with West Yorkshire, who will join the ranks of the combined authorities from 2021. 

All in all then, a budget that is a triumph for the technical consultor. With the majority of the consultations being fairly dry functional ones about the functioning of tax policy and administration, it would be easy to be dismissive. That they may not be of interest to the wider general public however does not render them somehow beyond the need for qualitative scrutiny, and the Institute will be watching with the eyes of a hawk to see that they are being done properly. In the long run, many of the ‘soft’ consultation promises may prove far more interesting than the ‘hard’ ones. Of course, given the changing circumstances, it may well be that very few of these plans come to fruition, but either way we’re looking forward to seeing what comes in consultation in this Parliamentary cycle. 

Post-script: It is important to note in light of the extraordinary circumstances that the budget has been rather overtaken by events. The ongoing pandemic means that inevitably many of the projects and pledges made in the budget will be at best delayed, and at worst outright cancelled. At present most of the planned consultations are still being promised on their original timescales, however given what is happening and how occupied the Government is on other matters, it may well be that the schedules do slip. The omens, it would seem have changed. There may well be a second budget to deal with the aftermath. It is reasonable to assume that once this is over, the Government will continue to press ahead with as many of these projects as they can- particularly important for them as they were elected on the back of them. Whether the state of the country permits that is another matter.