It’s great to be back after the half-term recess and our local response to recent storms seems to have gone reasonably well. Bad weather always makes me worry in particular about local flood vulnerability and I am keeping the pressure on local agencies to accelerate measures to prevent flooding in the future. The new Unitary Authority's ability to cooordinate more integration of planning and flood mitigation should help but I am not prepared simply to wait for that.
It was an honour on Tuesday to cut the ribbon officially opening the iAero centre in Yeovil. This new hub of aerospace engineering innovation will further enhance our capabilities and reputation in the field and I am sure will help inspire a new generation of Somerset engineers.
The project is backed and funded by a number of organisations including the County Council, Local Enterprise Partnership and Leonardo. Things like this take a while to put together and I have been involved since the year I was elected securing the LEP's funding for it and the Government-directed funding that was injected via the old European regional development fund, so it was brilliant to mark the official opening as well as catch up with lots of the people involved. It’s a brilliant collaboration space on Bunford Lane and will have a direct impact on helping businesses in the supply chain and related industries and educational institutions to progress new ideas, opportunities and employment.
Sadly the international news is not so positive as Russia is taking advantage of Europe's dependence on its gas and oil and escalating the situation in Ukraine. My view is that the strongest and most effective response to Russian aggression would be to increase our energy independence through sources including domestic shale gas and rapid investment in clean technology, in addition to looking at stronger economic sanctions.
This week I sat on a committee along with David Warburton to look over changes to local Government here in Somerset and how to make them for work really well for people throughout the County, and I also had a meeting with Treasury Minister Lucy Fraser to discuss an online sales tax. This latter is an idea that the Government will be holding a formal consultation on soon. While I support the idea of levelling the playing field for local businesses my concern is that any extra taxes will just be passed on to the customer, making things more expensive.
In my view any work in this should consider wholesale reform to reduce and replace Business Rates and other property based taxes that need updating for the modern world. I will keep lobbying the Treasury to remove such outdated methods of tax that hold businesses back and have become unfair.