UK has made life difficult for itself Mark Lent by cutting fish out of your diet
When I heard recently that a lady sending a parcel to family in Sweden found it took seven weeks and incurred import taxes, I realised it is now more difficult to send parcels to the EU than it is for me to send them to my son In Hong Kong. Why is this?
The easy movement of goods and people between countries is not the natural order of things. The natural order across the world is for complicated and bureaucratic
obstacles. These tend not to impede us much because most countries have made agreements with each other to ease the flow of goods and travellers.
Such agreements typically have many limitations but in the 1980s the sovereign states of Europe developed a very comprehensive agreement, promoted and largely designed by the UK, and known as the single market. This made movement of all types simpler within Europe than anywhere else in the world.
After the 2016 referendum, the UK could have left the EU with a new agreement, retaining all those aspects of the single market that were advantageous to us. Instead the government went for a complete divorce, dumping the existing agreements and doing little work on replacing them until their rushed deal in December 2020.
The agreement we ended up with is so limited that there are now more bureaucratic barriers to trade with the EU than there are to trade with most other countries. So much was discarded in their haste to ‘get Brexit done’ that in many areas the new arrangements are worse than those we had before joining in 1973.
As a result, the UK will be negotiating with the EU for years ahead to deal with all the details that the government didn’t bother with last December. The objective of these talks will be to simplify trading and transport arrangements with our closest neighbours. This work needs to start soon.
Roger Chapman
Bath
If you’re leaving meat off your plate during Lent, please extend your compassion to fish, too.
People of all faiths surely agree that cruelty to animals violates their religious principles, yet fish suffer horribly before they reach our dinner tables.
When fish are dragged out of their ocean homes in huge nets – along with “non-target” victims such as dolphins and turtles – their gills often collapse, their eyes bulge out of their heads, and their swim bladders burst because of the sudden change in pressure.
Sascha Camilli
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)
A leading online sex toy business has soared into the league table of UK firms with the fastest growing exports.
Bath-based erotic gift business Lovehoney, which saw overseas sales of its sex toys and lingerie peak at £56.3 million before the Covid pandemic started, is featured in the 12th annual Sunday Times HSBC International Track 200, which ranks Britain’s midmarket private companies with the fastest-growing exports.
The company, which won a Queen’s Award for Enterprise in 2016, has enjoyed a further sales hike during lockdown, with up to 200 per cent growth in every territory worldwide.
Lovehoney, set up in 2002, employs 340 people at its Bath base, having taken on another 70 when the pandemic lockdowns caused a buying frenzy for its products. The company is ranked at number 194 in the list after seeing 19 per cent export growth in the past two years. Overall sales were at £124.3m in March 2020.
The company owns the exclusive rights to produce Fifty Shades of Grey sex toys.
Also, entering the list for the first time, at number 172, is Somerset’s Redlynch Agricultural Engineering, which sells combine harvesters, seed planters and tractors to trade customers.
It has seen a 23 per cent, twoyear growth in overseas sales to £1.8m, with overall turnover at £32.2m. The Burton-headquartered company employs 36 people.
The companies in the South West appear alongside well-known British brands based across the UK including Sweaty Betty, the women’s activewear brand that sells to 195 countries; Brewdog, which was valued at £1 billion in 2017 and now has 100 bars worldwide; and Brompton, the bicycle manufacturer, which ships to 47 markets.
The league table programme is sponsored by HSBC and DHL Express, and compiled by Fast Track, the Oxford-based research and networking events firm.
Amanda Murphy, head of commercial banking, HSBC UK, said: “After a challenging start to 2021, all eyes are on the companies that will drive a return to growth in 2021.
“We are confident that the innovation and entrepreneurial spirit of businesses such as those in the South West listed on International Track 200 will carry them forward.”
The full league table was published as a supplement in The Sunday Times on February 21, both in print and in the tablet edition, and on www.fasttrack.co.uk.
It’s been interesting to see a growing number of organisations declaring a Climate Emergency as they redouble efforts to reduce carbon emissions.
Even those members of ours who have not gone so far as to make a formal declaration, fully appreciate the benefits of doing what they can to follow a green agenda, not least when it brings savings on things like energy bills.
But the pursuit of doing the right thing can be a bit more complicated than it looks at first sight and today I’d like to talk about two examples which I think illustrate the problem.
Buildings are among the main generators of carbon emissions so anything you can do to improve their insulation has got to be good news. That poses a problem in Bath’s many listed buildings which are bound by regulations which restrict things like the installation of double glazing.
A few years back I thought St John’s
Hospital had cracked it by getting permission to use specialised double glazing in one of their buildings.
Unfortunately any hopes that this would have created a precedent which many others could use were dashed and each application has to be looked at on a case-by-case basis.
Surely when climate and history collide we can find a way to create a new flexibility ?
The second example is Bristol Airport, which is seeking planning permission to further develop the site to allow it to accommodate up to 12 million passengers from the current 10 million. Opponents have complained bitterly about the scheme, pointing out how much in the way of emissions come from aviation, but many business people feel having a well connected regional airport is a significant benefit to the local economy.
If there was no Bristol Airport at all, would that stop you flying ? Or would it just mean you took off from somewhere further afield?
Figures from the Civil Aviation Authority show that 4 million short haul trips were made by people from the South West in 2019 from London Airports and more than half the journeys were made by car. If Bristol Airport offered more destinations to Europe would that mean fewer motoring miles and actually contribute to lower emissions?
In short there are many factors to be taken into account when it comes to supporting the green agenda. Businesses are ready to play their part but there needs to be an appreciation of the pressures they are under and the cost implications they face of going green.
By working together in an open minded way we can achieve the best outcome for all sides.