Who are the remaining candidates?
Following weeks of voting and eliminating candidates, now only two remain. The Tory party can either elect Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak as their leader / the new PM. The winner is due to be announced on the 5th of September. But what does this mean for tradespeople, what changes may occur and who has shown the most passion for supporting the boots on the ground?
Rishi’s history with the trades
Rishi has not come from a trade background of any sort, though this has not stopped him attempting to get involved. Funding green home grants, cutting stamp duty and backing heritage skills are just some of the ways in which Rishi has tried to help.
Not all of Rishi’s goals have been good for the industry. In his latest proposal for the role of PM, Rishi announced he would “increase corporation tax from 19% to 25%, for companies exceeding 250k profit, by April 2023.” Considering many tradespeople work for limited companies, they could feel the negative impacts of this legislation.
Liz’s history with the trades
Liz has not come from any sort of trade or construction background either. However, unlike Rishi, she has not been shown to have any real involvement with the industry up until now.
One of her only mentions of construction is in her proposal for PM, it mentions her pledge to ‘ditch’ the 300k housing target, originally undertaken as part of Boris’s election proposal. Scrapping this target would result in a housing shortage, as well as a lack of work for tradespeople, significantly impacting earnings.
Prepare for the verdict
Neither of the candidates have stated their support for tradespeople in their latest proposals but until the verdict is announced in September, we can only speculate how much support the industry will receive.
Tell us your thoughts on the re-election so far!
