Richard Lambert says Coalition putting politics before economy

In his farewell speech at the CBI, Sir Richard Lambert criticised the Coalition Government for their lack of vision on business growth and said that they had allowed politics to take precedence over economics.

The director general of the Confederation of British Industry is due to stand down this Friday. During his final major speech he said that the government had done some good things so far and that he supported them on the spending cuts but added that they have failed to set out the long-term goals for what the economy might become.

As he addressed those at the speech he criticised the government for what he called careless decision-making regarding the economy and that they hadn’t considered the damage that might be done to job creation and business.

Sir Richard insisted that the Government had delivered only vague promises rather than any concrete vision for the growth of the economy. Also, the Growth White Paper which was promised last autumn never materialised as well as more pledges that were not followed through.

Some examples given by Sir Richard were the immigration cap; the badly managed introduction of the Local Enterprise Partnerships; the change to the default retirement age; the commitment to carbon reduction which has been turned into another tax; and the uncertainty surrounding the Bribery act.

He praised the Government for making steps towards helping small businesses and entrepreneurs and said that they had made a good start. But he said that similar plans should be drawn up for the personal tax policy and warned that rises over the past year have pushed the UK well below the level of nearly all other competitor jurisdictions.