I know from experience that leading the Liberal Democrats is a frustrating job; marginalised in the media and patronised by the two traditional parties. But periodically we hit on a message which resonates in the country, as with Charles Kennedy’s opposition to the Iraq war. Ed Davey may have found another: ‘Stand up to Trump’.
These are early days in the second Trump administration, but a political, economic and cultural revolution is under way. The MAGA movement is also much bigger than its capricious, unpredictable leader. Trump’s apostles like JD Vance and Hegseth are ideologically extreme but also articulate, smart and superficially plausible. And they regard Britain with contempt: our secular and liberal values; our diverse society; our democratically elected government. We need to understand that the sentimental nonsense about the ‘special relationship’ is over. We are under attack.
I have some sympathy for our government. Starmer is being understandably cautious recognising that there is much uncertainty and danger. The resulting passivity has however created a leadership vacuum. The Tories and Reform vie to be mini-Trumps. They are also skirting around the edge of treacherous collusion with people who openly declare their wish to overthrow our legitimate government. Nor will leadership come from the lazy anti-Americanism of the far left which sees Trump as merely a cruder spokesman for American imperialism than Clinton or Obama.
Step forward the leader of the Liberal Democrats to provide a focal point for resistance. The fact that Ed Davey has attracted the abuse of Trump’s outrider, Elon Musk, is to his credit. Being described as a ‘snivelling cretin’ tells us less about him than about the deranged people who insult him: the MAGA folk who think that Tommy Robinson is the authentic voice of the British working class; that London is a Muslim city; and that ‘free speech’ has been outlawed in the UK. The irony of using ‘freedom’ as a dividing line with Britain appears to be completely lost on people whose idea of personal freedom is ownership of offensive automatic weapons, facilitating mass killings. As for the decadence and decay of Europe it pays to point out that, in Trump’s macho USA, male life expectancy is five years or so less than ours and less than in China or Ecuador.
But apart from firing verbal projectiles, what does ‘standing up to Trump’ look like? Tariffs? We will be dragged down like everyone else by a global trade war. But in relation to Trump’s irrational obsession with bilateral trade balances, the UK is in the clear albeit with some minor quibbling about the statistics. Britain’s exports are, any event, skewed to services and other items which don’t carry tariffs. An exception is steel, and the remnants of this once great industry are set to take another beating. Outside the EU, Britain does not have the clout to retaliate, and, in any event, the Americans will point out that for British exporters to complain about tariffs is a bit rich since Britain unilaterally raised tariffs against itself when it left the EU customs union.
More reassuringly, the USA is no longer quite the power in world trade it once was, or Trump thinks it is. The EU is the dominant power in trade in goods and services combined, China in goods. Though relatively declining, the US is still the world’s largest importer with around 15% of world imports narrowly ahead of the EU and China. It can damage its trade partners, as it clearly intends to do, but there is nothing to stop them trading more with each other. America, of course, runs big trade deficits. It has the privilege of being able to consume disproportionately by issuing dollar IOUs (which may soon lose their appeal as a store of value). Trump’s particular genius has been an ability to translate this self-indulgence into victimhood. We have no reason to fuel this national self-pity. We should ignore it; diversify away from the USA; re-build trading relationships with our European neighbours; and prioritise emerging markets including those that annoy the Americans as with China, Mexico and Vietnam. Hedging is the best response to uncertainty.
Another tricky issue for the UK concerns digital business and US tech giants. The last government recognised the inequity whereby British-based businesses pay tax on overall company profits while the tech companies avoid UK tax by running high volume, low margin businesses in the UK and declaring the profits elsewhere. There is a related inequity as between ‘bricks and mortar’ and digital business. The Tories introduced a modest 2% digital tax on turnover. The tax has however enraged the Tech Bros who have enlisted Trump to demand its removal. This issue should be a red line for Mr Starmer. The public would be outraged by any capitulation to protect the billionaire lifestyles of Besos and Zuckerberg at the expense British taxpayers. Trump’s demands also aim a wrecking ball at multilateral attempts to arrest a race to the bottom on tax. Trump, of course, hates anything multilateral, however sensible.
There is a bigger issue in the digital world: the limits of regulation. The European Union and, so far, the UK have been trying to find a middle way between Chinese-style control over Internet content and a US-led libertarian free-for-all which treats curbs on child pornography and incitement to violence as an affront to free speech. The British On-line Safety Act is a specific target for Trump. A bigger target is the tough anti-monopoly policy of the European Commission which, until the change in regime in Washington, was broadly shared in the USA. The Labour government is showing signs – as in the safety regulation of AI – of falling in behind the Trump administration and being seduced by the lovely word ‘innovation’. I recall it was also the buzz word in the investment banks before the financial crash. We have been warned.
These rather technical, but critically important, economic issues are overshadowed by the emerging schism in trans-Atlantic security. Even putting aside such non-trivial issues as the American betrayal of Ukraine, it has become self-evident that Europe will have to organise its own defence. Britain owes a debt to previous Labour leaders who won internal battles to keep the British independent nuclear deterrent (though we do have to wonder how independent it really is). The current defence strategy seems to be to commit to a target for spending more money and then to work out how to spend it: an indulgence not given to, say, the police or schools. The question will soon arise as to why, for example, we are paying for British aircraft carriers (when they are not being repaired) to wander around the China sea in support of America, or the AUKUS Treaty, when America is no longer committed to the defence of Europe.
Perhaps the biggest challenge to Britain is Trump’s war on the whole system of multilateral cooperation and rules based on mutual self-interest. The US, China, India and the EU can plausibly shut out the world albeit at considerable cost. Medium sized, open and exposed countries like the UK cannot. So, what happens to the Bretton Woods financial institutions, the WTO, the COP and the whole United Nations system if America walks away? One answer is to carry on. When narcissists throw a hissy fit the best policy is to ignore them. There are institutions like the Asia-Pacific trade group, CPTPP, or the Asia Infrastructure Bank which function well despite a US boycott (Britain, sensibly, is a member of both).
The USA is no longer the global hegemon. It is in relative decline (which is, after all, the reason for MAGA). Its absence is not the end of the world. Britain potentially has a big role in saving and adapting regional and global institutions in coalitions of the willing. That is a better prospect than servility and humiliation in Trump-world. Ed Davey is on to something.
* Sir Vince Cable is the former MP for Twickenham and was leader of the Liberal Democrats from 2017 until 2019. He also served in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills from 2010 to 2015.
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34 Comments
Meaningless sabre rattling from geopolitical minnows.
Not quite sure what Ms Davies is getting at. I thought that Sir Vince’s analysis was spot on. He might have been born in the same year as me (1943) but the old grey matter is still working. Pity he wasn’t born in 1965 and still firing on all cylinders, like Sir Ed. Twenty years can make a big difference!
Spot on Vince. Yet another sensible, thoughtful and accurate contribution.
Mark’s comment very much wiser than Selma s ! Look forward to Ed Davey fleshing out his arguments in critique of the appalling positions set out by the Trump administration last week
Well argued generally, but I’d hesitate to prioritise trade with China over trade with the US because of Trump. However bad Trump is on almost any measure of imperialism, selfishness, interfering with internal UK affairs, or lack of respect for democracy, China is far worse. Not only that, but Trump will be gone in 4 years, with at least a reasonable chance that the Democrats will be back in control of at least some of the US Government too, whereas there looks to be almost zero chance of China getting a more benign Government within the next decade or so.
Improving trade with such places as Canada, Mexico, European, and other democratic countries is great – particularly if in the process it means Trump sees that his approach is simply isolating the US. I’d even go along with better trade and relations with countries like Vietnam (authoritarian and undemocratic but we do share a strong common interest in countering China’s imperialism). But responding to the US by improving trade with China seems to make no sense at all.
Agree with most of that but Vince is wide of the mark on Digital Services Taxes (DSTs) – these aren’t borne by US tech companies (let alone the ‘Tech Bros’); rather they are directly passed on to consumers. DSTs are a bit akin to VAT (though much less well designed as a tax) and not so far from Trump’s beloved tariffs. Ultimately DSTs, like tariffs, harm domestic consumers in the country that imposes them. We should be abolishing them, not promoting them.
@ Vince ‘The fact that Ed Davey has attracted the abuse of Trump’s outrider, Elon Musk, is to his credit. Being described as a ‘snivelling cretin’ tells us less about him than about the deranged people who insult him’. Well said.
With both children and their children on the other side of the Atlantic I fear Musk. The UK’s future must be 100% with the EU. Starmer must come off the fence and Ed must lead us into Europe.
Thank you Vince Cable for this. The Brexit debate was always about a strategic choice between Europe and the USA. We chose USA. What a disaster. Only the LDs have the moral authority to say that and to point the way back to Europe.
@SimonR, quite agree with you. China is undemocratic and a massive polluter with its obsession with coal mining. Vince however, seems to be obsessed with trading with China.
If we have to turn away from US protection those 2 aircraft carriers MUST be fully active as an umbrella for all of Europe.The effort to make them fully serviceable will also involved job creation.A small step in GROWTH
However bad Trump is on …………. lack of respect for democracy
I don’t think there is much milage in attacking Trump for lack of respect for democracy. As with Brexit – he won, both in the electoral college and in the popular vote – and I’m sure he and his toadies and lickspittles will remind us of this on a regular basis.
In related comment I see Bedenoch has “warned people not to listen to the “media class” talking about populism, saying that the true purpose of democracy was to put into action the wishes of “everyday people”.”
I am not sure we are right to attack Badenoch for saying “Some cultures are better than others”. Do we really believe that a culture that excludes people on the basis of race, poverty, sex and sexuality for example (step forward Mr Trump) – is just as good as a culture that seeks to prevent enslavement by reason of poverty, ignorance or conformity? Of course we do not.
Trump is by no means unique in American society. Many US businessmen, large and small, will recognise and welcome the hardball transactional business approach that he is attempting to apply to the political arena.
The idea of America, Inc or ‘the business of America is business’ is not unique either. UK Plc was a slogn in the Blair years.
Vince’s point about tax reform is a salient one. In the US federal system , state corporate taxes are levied on firms proprtionally on the basis of turnover, assets and employees in the state.There is no federal VAT, but states levy sales taxes.
Trump has hit on the idea of reciprical tariffs i.e. country by country levies that levy tariffs at equivalent levels.
Trump has stated that he considers VAT a reciprocal tariff. VAT is levied on imports but not exports i.e. VAT is trade neutral The European VAT is Not a Discriminatory Tax Against US Exports
Ultimately, we need to adapt our own system of taxation to be able to deal effectively with the leakage of GDP to digital business, US tech giants and foreign owned businesses operating in the UK with a focus on capturing the benefit of economic rents for the benefit of UK society as a whole.
As Vince concludes ” Britain potentially has a big role in saving and adapting regional and global institutions in coalitions of the willing”. However, when it comes to trade relations and double taxation agreements, a bit of hardball (including a witholding tax on dividends and alternative miniumum corporate tax) would not go amiss.
It’s a very dangerous situation in which we find ourselves. The idea that we can be reliant on the more pacifist countries of the EU to be reliable allies in an armed conflict with Russia is somewhat misplaced.
We should wait until we see what the outcome of the talks might be. If it’s established that the Russian areas of Ukraine want to be a part of Russia then we would be well advised to leave it that. We shouldn’t send off our young men into a battle they are unlikely to win. If we do lose the outcome will be disastrous for all.
“Trump has stated that he considers VAT a reciprocal tariff. VAT is levied on imports but not exports”
Ok but superficially this could seem to be a reason for classing VAT as a tariff. Tariffs are applied to imports but not exports.
It isn’t a tariff, though, because VAT is also applied on domestic produce. Tariffs are applied only on imported produce.
Nigel, two (or even more) aircraft carriers are no longer the protection you suggest. They present large slow-moving targets, plainly visible on the surface (unlike nuclear subs) and easy with modern technology to disable or destroy. Think remote-controlled torpedoes!
@Joe Bourke – at risk of being the tax bore on here, the UK already has a corporate alternative minimum tax, namely the domestic QDMTT enacted as part of the OECD’s Pillar 2 (global minimum tax) framework.
Withholding taxes generally – particularly on dividends – are a) a poor idea in terms of driving inefficient capital flows b) would have minimal impact on US tech giants (if you make little of your profit in the UK, then there’s not much to pay dividends on) and c) are generally reduced to nil or not much under the UK’s excellent network of bilateral tax treaties (one of the very few areas where the UK really does have a competitive advantage over almost every other country).
If you want to tax more of the profits of US tech businesses in the UK (rather than in the US, where they are currently taxed instead), then you broadly have 2 options:
1) you can agree – on a global, multilateral basis – a profound, once in a century change to the way the basis on which profits are allocated between countries. That’s what the OECD attempted with its “Pillar 1” but, unsurprisingly, neither the US nor China would sign up to that, so it is now dead in the water; or (continued …)
2) you can work with the current rules and foster an environment where US tech businesses are encouraged to locate more of their value creating activities in the UK. High value activity in the UK automatically means more profit is recognised (& taxed) here. We actually had some success with this in the early 2010s (witness the big regional hubs set up in London) but with high rates of corporation tax, pitiful incentives for innovation and – worst of all – the world’s most complicated and fastest-growing tax code, it’s unsurprising that this initiative has fallen away. Oh, and far more important than tax, there’s the small matter of Brexit, making it harder to attract international talent to the UK …
…the Americans will point out that for British exporters to complain about tariffs is a bit rich since Britain unilaterally raised tariffs against itself when it left the EU customs union.
That’s untrue. The UK has scrapped many tariffs including all ‘nuisance tariffs’ under 2%, so 47% of goods entering the UK are now tariff free compared to just 27% when we were in the EU Customs Union. In addition to the TCA with the EU, we’ve made numerous new Free Trade Agreements removing tariffs with trade partners such as our fellow CPTPP members. These give us better access to fast growing economies outside the EU where almost all future growth in world GDP is projected to be. We are also gradually replacing the rolled-over EU trade deals, which are poor for the UK, not least because they don’t cover services (60% of our non-EU exports). Overall, Brexit has enabled us to reduce trade barriers and move us up to eighth place in the International Trade Barriers Index:
https://www.tradebarrierindex.org/
<blockuote.One of the most newsworthy insights of the 2021 TBI is the remarkable progress of the United Kingdom in lowering its own trade barriers after Brexit. Once the UK exited the EU’s common external tariff at the beginning of 2020, it embarked on one of the world’s most ambitious efforts at unilateral trade liberalization. With its new UK Global Tariff, the nation slashed hundreds of tariff lines to zero and signed 60 liberalizing trade agreements.
Good points, Dominic. Whether the QDMTT will mark an end to international tax competition on tax rates – the so-called “race to the bottom” that has seen headline rates decline from an OECD average of over 40% forty years ago to 23% today – remains to be seen. The issues raised by public accounts commitee inquiries into large scale tax avoidance by Starbucks, Google and Amazon are yet to be satisfactorily resolved Starbucks, Google and Amazon grilled over tax avoidance
Non-resident witholding taxes might go some way to addressing the equity concerns such as the £1.2 billion Arcadia dividend paid to the wife of Sir Phillip Green in 2005 while a resident of Monaco.
Agree that Brexit is a more important issue, but there still seems to be much to be done to close the tax gap to more moderate levels. At the very least, a serious effort might stop us seeing a crackdown on tax avoidance as a major means of paying for increased public spending in party manifestos.
Joseph Bourke – we prob ought to take this offline rather than bore others with this but those enquiries into Amazon, Starbucks etc weren’t really particularly fair at the time (>10 years ago) and were more about grandstanding by a certain M Hodge, the less said about whom the better.
Things have in any case moved on substantially in the last 15 years or so. Corporation tax is a pretty lousy tax to start with (companies don’t pay tax, it’s borne by a combination of their customers, suppliers, employees and shareholders) but avoidance by large multinationals is now pretty minuscule. The real tax gap, as HMRC calculate it each year, is among SMEs and, particularly, individuals – both at the top end and the bottom (think VAT & the cash economy).
Every party pledges to crack down on tax avoidance in its manifesto – and the IFS rightly criticises them all for what is effectively a made-up balancing figure.
Dominic,
Vince writes above “The last government recognised the inequity whereby British-based businesses pay tax on overall company profits while the tech companies avoid UK tax by running high volume, low margin businesses in the UK and declaring the profits elsewhere. The Tories introduced a modest 2% digital tax on turnover. The tax has however enraged the Tech Bros who have enlisted Trump to demand its removal.”
This House of Lords report Tax implications of corporate profit shifting notes:
“In the UK, Lord Sikka is among those who have observed HMRC does not estimate revenue lost to corporate profit shifting. TaxWatch, a UK charity and investigative think tank…estimated that seven large US-based technology groups avoided paying roughly £2bn in UK tax in 2021 alone.
The Tax Justice Network estimates around £13.8bn may be lost to the UK exchequer through corporate tax avoidance, although this estimate is disputed. It has further called on the UK to support a UN framework convention on international tax cooperation. The UN General Assembly approved the terms of reference for such a framework convention in late 2024, although the UK voted against the resolution.”
Perhaps, as you say, this level of detail is for another thread, but as Vince has written “The public would be outraged by any capitulation to protect the billionaire lifestyles of Besos and Zuckerberg at the expense of British taxpayers.Trump’s demands also aim a wrecking ball at multilateral attempts to arrest a race to the bottom on tax.”
@Joseph: Those £2 Bn and £13.8 Bn figures sound large, but how much of those figures is tax avoided altogether, and how much is tax that is paid in some other country (possibly one that has lower tax rates) instead of the UK? To the extent that it’s the latter, it’s much less obvious how much scope there is for complaint, for us to take action about it.
Well said Mr Cable
Joseph – sadly those sources you quote are pressure groups with an agenda and in my experience their stats don’t hold water. But don’t take my word for it: HMRC (who have the real ‘inside’ data) publish their estimate of the tax gap every year, and that presents a completely different picture.
Pure bias aside, part of the discrepancy is that HMRC look at what tax is actually due under the law, whereas those pressure groups present numbers based on what they would like the law to be.
The more meaningful point is where they lobby for adoption of the UN Framework. This is similar to my point above about the OECD Pillar 1 initiative, the difference being that the UN approach is less well thought through and has even less chance of achieving consensus (not just the US & China are opposed but no major developed economy thinks it’s a good idea).
Simon R – the irony is that those profits are being taxed elsewhere (they’re not magically dropping out of tax altogether) but the place where they’re mostly being taxed is the US, which is hardly a low taxed jurisdiction. It’s just that the US is where the value in their business models is actually being created: it’s where the smart people in Silicon Valley are writing the algorithms, identifying the new use cases & evolving the business models. What takes place in the UK & other market jurisdictions is pretty minimal & low value activity, sadly, so it’s correct that it attracts a relatively small share of the profits.
That’s just the way that the international tax system works – in other business models other countries benefit (eg UK in pharma or France in luxury goods). The OECD (& now UN) were looking to change those principles to allocate more profit to market jurisdictions, which would be a fundamental change, but there would be winners & losers (different by sector) so it’s unsurprising that it’s hard to reach consensus.
Well said, Vince (as always)!!
However, the solutions – or mitigations, because there are no solutions to the ethical and cultural crisis we find ourselves in – mentioned above do carry one clear lesson which we have to accept as a corollary. We now recognise that our spending on defence and security (and that of the rest of Europe) has been based on the belief in an American umbrella which Trump has shown to be unreliable. Like Vince and many Liberals, i have numerous friends across the Atlantic, but it is clear that the Democrats (and the moderate left in general) are in disarray and even in retreat, and unlikely to make any early return to government. We will surely have a President Vance in 2029, or someone like him.
So our spending (and that of fellow-Europeans) on defence and security must increase. Not to Trump’s called-for figure of 5%, but substantially more that at present. The USA itself currently spends some 3.4% of GDP on defence, and a similar figure should be our target across Europe. We’ve had this on the cheap for too long! And I must admit that I’ve been as guilty of this as anyone.
@Dominic – “Corporation tax is a pretty lousy tax”
Pick any tax you like, and someone will argue that it’s lousy. But Corporation Tax is one of the better ones (or should be). For a start, it is inherently payable – being a tax on profit rather than a cost of doing business. So struggling companies, or growing start-ups don’t pay it. Contrast with Reeves’ increase in employer NI which is a tax on something we usually consider to be a good thing (providing employment) and hits all companies including those struggling and the growing start-ups.
The “cost” of Corporation Tax is bourne by shareholders who ultimately receive lower dividends because paying the tax reduces the free cash available. That’s not to say it’s free money – many of us are shareholders, even if only indirectly via pension schemes etc.
I rather have higher Corporation Tax and lower employer NI, but the downside is the ease in which companies can shop around for more favourable tax jurisdictions, whereas employees are where they are.
Nick Baird – I agree that everyone will argue they don’t like particular taxes, though some are better than others based on economic impact, ease of administration, perceptions of fairness etc. Personally I think land value taxes and VAT are some of the best designed taxes; stamp duties, council tax and withholding taxes are some of the worst, so corporation tax is somewhere in the middle (but still pretty lousy).
There are plenty of economic studies to show that the incidence of corporate income taxes falls not just on shareholders (in the UK that means heavily skewed to pension funds) but also on employees, customers & suppliers. Ers NICs are essentially another form of corporate income tax, with a different tax base – the UK isn’t alone, there are some regimes (I think Italy, for example) which tax profits gross of employment costs, so achieving quite a similar thing.
If you’re going to have a well designed corporate income tax system, you should have a modest rate but a broad base – and keep it simple. Successive governments were moving in the right direction (reducing the rate, broadening the base, increasing the overall tax take as a result) until Sunak (as chancellor) went in completely the opposite direction. No government has a good track record on simplifying and the UK now has the longest, most complicated tax code in the world! The obsession with tinkering (rather than adopting a principles based approach) yields inevitable complexity which, in turn, makes the UK less attractive & less productive.
When commenting on defence spending between different NATO members one thing seems always to be forgotten. When the 2% ‘recommendation’ was arrived at there was no agreement on what was on the list of relevant spending. Apparently, one of the wheezes the UK government pulled was to move service pensions from the social security budget to the defence budget and hey presto, without buying an extra bullet, we hit 2%. We need to be able to compare like with like!
As for those two aircraft carriers they were always ‘boys toys’ and a waste of money!
What is really worrying is the distinct possibility that we could see the USA fighting against Ukraine…
1) Trump seems determined to allow Putin to keep the parts of Ukraine he already holds in return for a deal on rare minerals…
2) Volodymyr Zelenskyy has already stated that it won’t accept a peace deal ceding that land to Russia..
3) Should Russia start mining activities, on behalf of the USA, Ukraine could reasonably consider such sites legitimate targets…
4) Trump could well mount air strikes on those bases attacking the mining operations; and flying aircraft on such missions from US bases in Europe will cause further divisions..
Far fetched, maybe; but, with Trump, who knows? After all, he’s threatening to use military force against Denmark… ,
“What a tangled web we weave… etc.”… A classic ‘domino effect of complications which eventually run out of control….
Vince – a great article, wide ranging and thought provoking. Even more interesting are the comments – but I find the China-bashing a bit superficial. Linda Chung (joint founder of The Chinese Lib Dems, now CESEA (The Chinese, E & SE Asia Lib Dems).
@Dominic
> It’s just that the US is where the value in their business models is actually being created…
I cannot agree with you on your view that firms allocate tax where the value add happens.
Visibly the do not. Microsoft book their profits on licensing software in Nevada – not Washington State –
because it is tax efficient. Much oil is traded in Switzerland although it never physically travels there.
The infamous Vesteys avoided paying tax on beef in Argentina decades ago because they
could get a better tax deal in the UK. Nicholas Shaxton has other examples in his books.
For academic analysis it might be a convenient assumption to co-locate tax and value added.
However it is not the way actual business happens.
That is not to say you are wrong that too many UK firms are low-value pop-up operations,
the are. But that is a different matter. Also an over complex tax code is a problem.
But tax jurisdiction shopping is a thing.
So value add can occur in the UK and be booked in the US.
I now this as I once invented something while working for a US
client. I was asked to write a report and send it to an address
list including “the US inventors” for patent filing.
@Peter Martin – “If it’s established that the Russian areas of Ukraine want to be a part of Russia then we would be well advised to leave it that. ‘
There is no way to establish that.
In the last free elections, none of those areas (or Crimea back pre-2014) were voting for parties advocating leaving Ukraine and joining Russia, so you don’t have to be a genius to guess what “the will of the people” there was.
In addition, as Russia has already annexed all of the regions concerned (including areas that Russian troops have never got near), Russia isn’t going to allow any “free and fair” method of establishing what the people still there want. In so far as Russia is concerned the people there are now 100% Russian and nothing is going to be allowed that might challenge that.
I agree we are better going round than directly confronting Trump and his policies that we don’t like. We live in a flexible and in some ways chaotic world. There are plenty of opportunities to do trade outside the USA. Our manufacturing and services industries should take the opportunity to build resilience into their procedures.