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Brokers respond to Jeremy Hunt's speech at the Conservative Party Conference

Journalist: Riz Malik

ended 02. October 2023

Brokers and business owners have criticised the length and substance of  Jeremy Hunt's speech at the Conservative party conference, with one saying, witheringly, “more hot air and pointless white noise.” Another described it simply as “inspiration free”. Their views are below.

6 responses from the Newspage community

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Michelle LawsonVerified
Director at Lawson Financial
More hot air and pointless white noise. This bunch really have lost touch with the very people that they serve and who pay their wages. November will be interesting however, if any of their previous history is to go by, I fear the statement will be full of more unachievable numbers, ill-thought out policy and another nail in the coffin for our economy that they appear hellbent on crashing.
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Graham CoxVerified
Director at Bridging Hub
It's clear from Jeremy Hunt's inspiration-free speech, that this zombie government have completely given up the ghost. They know they're staring into the electoral abyss and quite rightly, too. There was next to nothing significant about boosting the economy, so just like this government, it will be left to limp along.
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Riz MalikVerified
Independent Financial Adviser at R3 Wealth
The speech might as well have been crafted and presented by AI, it felt that wooden. With the Government's strategy of combating inflation in mind, raising the national minimum wage arguably has an inflationary impact. There was no mention of the dire property market. There was no mention of supporting business owners on their knees or households unable to make ends meet. I would grade it E5.
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Stephen PerkinsVerified
Managing Director at Yellow Brick Mortgages
This was a wasted opportunity to have a positive impact on battling inflation before the Autumn Statement in November. Whilst the increase in minimum wage will be very welcomed by millions of employees, the cost of this to employers will be directly passed onto consumers, mitigating the benefit and further stoking the inflation fire.
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Justin MoyVerified
Managing Director at EHF Mortgages
I think many of us expected much more from the speech. It was almost as if the auto-cue had cut him off in his pomp. The national minimum wage increase is immensely important to so many people, but bizarrely it may just push inflation on a bit further, as employers pass those extra costs onto the consumer. The Chancellor had the ideal opportunity to speak more about the economy, but perhaps said more by saying less?
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John Lamerton0
Small Business Author at Big Ideas... for Small Businesses
Once again, small business owners are left footing the bill for the rise in the minimum wage, while the government takes all the credit, along with ever-increasing tax hauls from small businesses after rises in National Insurance and Corporation Tax, reductions in capital gains and dividend allowances, and frozen personal allowances.