In this article, we invite you to SWBF’s Economic Breakfast Briefing, featuring expert insights from Mark Berrisford-Smith.
This article was featured in a recent edition of Bath’s Business Magazine, called TBE (The Business Exchange)
Hosted at Cumberwell Park Golf Club, this free event offers a valuable opportunity to learn about the current state of the UK economy under the new Labour government and what to expect in the coming months. With networking opportunities and expert analysis, it’s an event not to be missed.
Read on to find out more about the briefing, the economic outlook, and how the SWBF team continues to support local businesses.
Breakfast, networking and an economic briefing from Mark Berrisford-Smith
The team at South West Business Finance (SWBF) are hosting their Economic Breakfast Briefing this October.
Dan Smith. Co-Founder at SWBF. said, “We are delighted to invite the local business community to our upcoming Economic Breakfast Briefing at Cumberwell Park Golf Club on Thursday 10th October.
“Following last year’s well-received event, we have the great honour of being joined again by Mark Berrisford-Smith, who was Head of Economics al HSBC and presented our first Economic Briefing in 2023. He will be providing us with a very insightful update on the current state of the UK economy and what we might expect moving forward.
“This is a free event, and really is a seminar not to be missed as well as a fantastic networking opportunity. We had some great feedback from our first event and are really looking forward to hosting this follow-up session:
Mark Berrisford-Smith said, “By the time the South West Business Forum seminar takes place on 10th October, the new Labour government will be almost 100 days old. The event will therefore provide a good opportunity to reflect on its early policy announcements and to look ahead to the autumn Budget.
“Labour’s priority, repeated many times. is to get the economy growing at a faster rate than it has managed in the years since the global financial crisis. But if this was easy it would already have been done, and initiatives such as planning reform will not bear fruit quickly. In any event after the stagnation of the past two years, any growth at all would be welcome.
“The good news is that activity has perked up since the start of the year. not thanks to anything that governments have done, but simply because borrowing costs have stopped rising and energy costs have fallen. But the revival remains fragile, against an extremely dangerous geopolitical backdrop, as the war in Ukraine rages on and the world contemplates the prospect of a second Trump presidency. On positive notes, consumer confidence has revived in recent months, and at an aggregate level the “cost of living crisis” is in the past. Yet households continue to hold back a high proportion of their incomes, which means that consumer spending (so often the motor of the British economy) is still misfiring.
“Meanwhile, the immediate challenge for the new Chancellor is that the fiscal arithmetic has deteriorated since Jeremy Hunt’s Budget in March. With the public finances in such a precarious state, the new government will have next to no wriggle room, unless it is prepared to take bold measures to raise taxation, cut spending, or both. Perhaps by 10th October we’ll have some clues as to how it intends to break the logjam.”