Friday 20 February 2015

The forgotten victims of the coalition: the tax disc holder makers

The jobless, the disabled, the young: these are the faces of the victims of the brutal assault on social security by the coalition government. But the extent of austerity is felt much wider across society and it's taken until now for government policy to hit home to certain sections.
This week, we highlight an entire industry facing closure with thousands of jobs set to go with no sign of anything to replace them.

The change to vehicle excise duty made in 2014 has taken a while to filter down with the last physical tax discs already issued and a reducing number requiring display, but the impact on the tax disc holder industry is only now being felt.

"We feel abandoned", one worker told us shortly after receiving his redundancy notice. "This town used to be all about tax disc holders. Now that's going and there's nothing coming in to replace it." There's been little long-term planning for the eventual end of the industry and the skills the engineers in the factories possess are proving difficult to transfer.

Global factors are also at play as the USA and China have imposed strict import charges to protect their own, home-grown manufacturers while other markets are considering price controls in order to stave off a flood of imports from the UK. An industry spokesman told us he was active in lobbying the European Parliament to prevent such practices on the continent, but admitted there was little anyone could do outside Europe. "Competitiveness regulations throughout Europe are well-established and work quite well, but while the government are full of fancy words about trade with China, the USA and other countries, we see little action to prevent protectionism in these markets. More has to be done to prevent an entire industry disappearing with the associated societal issues the like of which we saw after the mines closed".

The changes have also had a knock-on effect on the businesses that supply the industry. Companies making inadequately sticky adhesives are similarly suffering while whole shelves in museum gift shops lie empty.

These communities have relied on tax disc holder manufacturing since the late 19th century. The desolation and chronic unemployment can cripple generations from these once-prosperous towns. The factories are closing. Nobody is coming to open them up. And there are precious few voices speaking up for those cast on the scrapheap.

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