Inflation August 2022

Higher labour costs are a major factor for us. It is staff power moment. Lots of foreign workers left either due to the pandemic or Brexit. Our industry is left with fewer staff, with every restaurant fighting for the best by offering more than the going hourly going rate. That's not a sustainable long-term strategy. Using gas for cooking all day long, and more recently keeping the air-con on all day long is another scary bill to expect. These are frightening times we live in. Increased costs for wheat, flour, proteins and vegetables all are squeezing restaurant owners like us. Add in supply chain issues that make some ingredients harder to get. One week we are struggling with chicken, another with wine, another with beer. Prices from suppliers are going up by the day, not the week or month. How long are we able to swallow the difference and not to pass it on to our customers? Will they still be visiting us as often as now if we do increase our prices? There are lots of questions and a huge amount of uncertainty. We can predict but we simply don’t know the answers to those questions. Suddenly you have a situation where staying afloat becomes all but impossible.

I paid in advance to do a run of craft fairs this year, and I have barely covered pitch fees, let alone travel costs. People simply don't have the confidence to spend money right now, and understandably so, as there is so much uncertainty surrounding soaring energy prices. They will need to heat their homes and feed themselves come winter, and a fair few won't be able to do both. While the pandemic made things incredibly difficult, there was still a sense of hope that we'd come out of it. That hope seems absent now, with the cost of raw materials and energy increasing way beyond anything I can keep up with. Chuck in the increased costs for shipping and it's just price increases all round. The politicians are too busy squabbling over who gets to be in charge, and not a single one of them has the faintest inkling of what members of the general public are going through. If they could just stop and take a look around for once, and actually try and put themselves in the shoes of the less privileged, they might do something useful for a change.

'Cooking on Gas' now ignites pound signs, not progress. As a catering company, we've found ourselves constantly juggling plates, and unfortunately we have had no choice but to increase our prices and delivery costs. We really didn't anticipate that the aftermath of the pandemic would be quite so challenging. Let's hope that the new Prime Minister looks into a financial package to help hospitality with continuing rising costs in fuel, food and energy.

Inflation hitting double figures has been coming at us all year, with a government more occupied with burying bad news than addressing the issues facing the nation. The current economic situation is far worse than the challenges of the pandemic. As a small business owner, I am lurching from one worry to the next. Supply cost increases and helping employees out with salary increases whilst absorbing National Insurance and Corporation Tax rises is emptying the coffers. In the meantime, navigating the tricky price increase conversation with clients means I’m left gambling twist, stick or bust to try and cope with the financial situation in front of me. We’re in the middle of a heatwave, which makes the looming energy price crisis seem academic right now. However it will be a matter of weeks before we’re all looking to heat our homes and businesses, sending us collectively into the next nationwide-felt woe. VAT is the first area I’d like to see the government addressing. A 20% tax on buying goods when people are tightening their belts means the tax man will be collecting 20% of a lot less than before. Altering VAT on fuel would also remove barriers for people who need to travel for their jobs. The exchequer already gets to keep the fuel duty, and taxing the same product twice is just greedy given the circumstances we find ourselves in.

Many people across the UK are already struggling with rising energy and food prices. The looming recession will squeeze households beyond their means unless difficult decisions are made. As the end of summer comes into view, families will be looking ahead to how they will be able to afford to stay warm and put food on the table. For people with family pets, the weight of this feels even greater; many are already on the brink of being forced to make the heart breaking decision of giving up their beloved companion in order to survive. In Somerset, we are already seeing the reality of this in the desperate calls for help we are receiving from pet owners on a daily basis. During the pandemic, the demand for pets skyrocketed, as people had more time on their hands to dedicate to animals whilst they worked from home or were on furlough. Now, as people return to work on site, many are struggling to care for their pets in the same way. The demand for pets has dropped dramatically, with people citing that they cannot afford the financial and time commitment in the current climate. The cost of living crisis and the upcoming recession have exacerbated an already dire situation, and the threat of an animal welfare crisis is fast approaching; our calls to surrender a pet are the highest they have been since we started our rescue charity in the 1980s. We have ambitious plans for Happy Landings but in truth, our focus like many others, is on survival. We are doing our best to keep up with the demand for spaces but can only do what our resources allow and we are at capacity. Whilst we cannot solve the financial crisis, we can help to support pet owners in crisis and prevent animal surrenders where we can.

Oil companies are printing money right now. Saudi Aramco just announced all-time record profits of over $48 billion. And that's just for one quarter. Meanwhile, millions of people face real financial hardship this winter, unsure if they can afford to heat their homes. Something has to give. The obvious solution is to greatly increase the windfall tax on North Sea oil and gas producers making vast sums at our expense. By January, the energy cap is predicted to triple and possibly quadruple compared to January 2022. Scrapping the 5% vate rate on energy and the green levy temporarily will also help a little, whilst bringing down inflation.

Incompetence, dishonesty, cronyism and elitism are at the core of a government that cannot get their house in order. How can it be that a ‘first world’ country is in such a mess, with families unable to thrive and feed their kids without the support of food banks and charities? And that’s before inflation goes crazy. As a tiny artisan jewellery business, the increased costs for precious metals, covering packaging and postage and general running costs, even as a kitchen top business, are untenable without increasing our prices or working for peanuts. Ultimately, when charging for an item of handmade jewellery, you have to calculate material and overhead costs, then add payment for your time. And that’s where handmade businesses often lose out, barely paying themselves a fair wage. Most folk simply cannot afford luxury items, and are afraid of what is looming, so we are finding sales are lower than they were during the pandemic. I think we are feeling the effects of the thin edge of a very thick wedge right now, and are looking at a government so clichéd that it is intent on sitting on its hands, while whistling dixie, as the ship goes down. As a Scottish business, the anger and disillusionment with the Westminster government is palpable within Scotland, and there is a hunger for change. As I understand it Scotland hasn’t voted Tory in a Westminster general election since 1955, and people are done with living under a government they didn’t vote for, the current Tory government surpassing any bounds of honourable behaviour. The way Boris and his cronies have behaved is despicable and I see little empathy or action likely for those who will suffer most as inflation and the cost of living rise. It’s a tipping point where there is anger and unrest at being governed by a rogues gallery in Westminster, one that Scotland did not vote for. There are considered conversations happening; discussion and debate around what independence and control of governance in Scotland might look like.

It looks like Kier Starmer has finally stepped out of the void and come up with a concrete solution. Everything else short of freezing the price cap is just tinkering around the edges when it comes to an issue that seems to represent a greater existential threat to people and businesses even than COVID. This requires firm government action.

Rising inflation and the cost of living crisis could not have come at a worse time for access to justice in England and Wales. We are seeing striking lawyers because legal aid has been cut and cut, year on year in real terms to the point that many lawyers struggle to pay bills and so are forced out of accepting legal aid work. Rather like dentists, legal aid lawyers will become something of history and lore, a bit like a unicorn. So what, why should society be concerned about lawyers? At least prior to the cost of living crisis many people were able to scrape together legal fees, now however, when people are struggling just to pay essential household bills, legal fees are a luxury many simply cannot afford. For many ordinary people that will mean a lack of qualified legal representation. This will mean that people will resort to untrained legal "advice", will try to litigate themselves, or will be denied access entirely to the legal system. A society where many are excluded from the justice system is a society built on very rocky foundations.