Jeremy's Blog 1st May 2020: Welcome to the E-Briefing – Responding to the Pandemic

This article by Jeremy Moody first appeared in the CAAV e-Briefing of 30th April 2020

We are in unusual times. It is, depending on the measure, 50 or 100 years since there was such a disease threat in the UK while we may now be in the sharpest contraction in the economy since the Great Freeze of 1709.

This period has been very disruptive but, as members attest, professional work, from valuations to renewable energy, has continued. While transactions have fallen away, the market reports are of demand recovering. That Great Freeze thawed and life resumed. Out there, farming continues better than most of the economy and people are finding ways to do business. The negotiations with the EU have resumed, currently looking like a test of wills between London and Brussels. Parliament is proceeding again with legislation and we may soon have the Agriculture and Environment Bills back in the House. The underlying issues of out post-EU policies and arrangements, climate change, new technologies and improving productivity remain to be tackled with clients to be helped through all.

However we come out of this and with whatever changes, the CAAV is working to support members. The first e-Briefing is one means, alongside the volume of work on the website, the continuing Future Skills programme, the use of podcasts and webinars, reviewing the preparations for the examinations, new publications and committees meeting by video-conference.

Welcome to this first e-Briefing covering both a sample of links to briefings thought useful or necessary and CAAV actions, intended to come out weekly during the restrictions. Feedback would be welcome. With the experience of the recovery from Foot and Mouth nearly twenty years ago and then from the financial crisis of 2007/8, we are looking to help now and ahead to the future.