Comment – Penny wise but..

I’m not one for getting involved in politics, given the tendency that politicians seem to come and go like buses, however with this weeks Autumn statement, its worth a look.

According to the number crunchers, about 2 million self employed people will be better off to the tune of £350 a year, plus if you have a limited company, the making permanent of the 100% machinery first year write down allowance is a good thing. But as Minette Batters,  NFU president commented this week “For instance, while we acknowledge the announcement of full expensing, most farm businesses are ineligible as the vast majority are unincorporated businesses.

“Similarly, while it’s positive to see streamlining of the planning system, especially on grid connections, again this appears limited to large scale projects.”

What does this mean for the machinery trade? Well at least the landscape isn’t worse than it was a week ago. Inflation seems to be on a downward trend, however the Office for Budget Responsibility has clipped their modest growth projections.

I’m not sure we can read a lot into the future profitability of farming on the basis of this weeks announcements.

Given that our customers are fundamentally exposed to world prices and are, in the main, commodity producers, its perhaps best to pray for some Southern Hemisphere drought/flooding at drilling time, that we have a dry spring, sunshine and modest rain (at nights only) during May and June, and a dry summer,  plus accept that to a large extent we have to make the best of the job.

And on that cheerful note, I’m looking forward to the rest of a dry sunny weekend!

Have a good week.

Andy