As the government continues its mission to ruin our country even further, has anyone broken down what is coming in April for our industry and those within it?
Not only will we as employers have to find an extra 1.2% in National Insurance contributions for our staff, but the vast increase in National Minimum Wage will mean most drivers are back to earning not far above it. That will do nothing for our sector but demoralise the staff we have got and make recruitment even more difficult.
In our business alone, we will need to find an extra £38,000 in increased PAYE contributions and somehow work out how to give drivers a pay rise to keep them keen and interested. All without bankrupting ourselves.
Yes, I hear you cry: “You are a business owner — plan for it.” All well and good in theory, but when school budgets are limited and rates have begun to drop again after COVID, this is not an easy thing to achieve.
Then we come to young people in our industry — the real reason for me writing this. We all know that when big companies are looking at budgets, the apprenticeship positions at the bottom of the food chain are going to be the first to be gotten rid of.
Why is it that when our industry is struggling to encourage young people to get involved that the government has just made it even harder for companies to justify the cost of apprenticeships and training the young people that we so desperately need, with no help whatsoever?
Companies that offer apprenticeships should be given PAYE relief, as well as grant options and possibly other incentives. We are taking students from school and teaching them a trade: A real-world skill in an industry that can give them a nice life and job progression if they wish.
They are the future of our sector. It is all well and good giving out Bus Service Improvement Plan money to uplift timetables, but if there is nobody to drive those extra services, or maintain the buses used on them, then what is the point?
The government says that it wants young people to stay in education until they are 18, but it does not help industries and businesses to offer apprenticeships.
It is quite happy for these young people to head to college on a Level 3 NVQ course and spend six hours per week talking about current affairs instead of the task at hand: Maintaining stuff or driving it.
This is ‘fact checked’ by my Level 3 NVQ heavy vehicle technician, who spent those six hours last week watching the news and talking about how it made them feel. While mental health in the world in general is a serious matter, my 18-year-old apprentice mechanic does not really care that much about the news and was fairly put out that they had wasted that time instead of spending it learning.
However, I must add that my three staff in the workshop will not be going anywhere. They have jobs for life with us, and we will support them all the way in our business, even if Keir Starmer and company are making that harder and harder to do!
Then we look at older operators in the industry getting to the end of their careers and no doubt wondering whether it is worth it. Are they really going to want the stress and heartache of trying to increase wages and paying extra costs of employment when they are on the fence about carrying on or finishing? Not that they can pass the business onto their children anyway, because the inheritance tax will cripple them as well!
I get it. The country is in a mess. But there are many large corporations making billions in profit every year, and yet it is working people like me and you that are having to plug the black hole that Rachel Reeves talks about.
Let’s face it: We could ask all these enormous companies for a couple of billion pounds extra each and plug the ‘black hole’ without causing undue stress and heartache to the likes of you and me in our small, family businesses.
I dare say that I am not the only member of the industry who has this conversation all the time. We sit in our brew room daily holding court and putting the world to rights. But we can’t change it, can we? We don’t have enough houses or offshore bank accounts to make a real difference!
Sam Archer
Archway Travel
Fleetwood
