Government Changes Tax Rules For Electricians

- Coming up on this week's news, the government outlines sweeping reforms to how much tax and national insurance electricians must pay, the NIC launches four new qualifications for the trade, and an engineer dubbed Mr Safety is in line for a £1 million payout after a horrific accident in the North Sea. Welcome to Electrical News Weekly in association with The Electric Heating Company, whether you're listening in the van, on site, or down at the wholesale counter. I'm Joe Robinson, and I've been through the best of the electrical industry news to save you the trouble. And as always, if you think you've spotted the two words that I've been challenged to slip into this week's show, comment with them below for the chance to win a prize. The government has unveiled a series of sweeping reforms to how much tax and national insurance electricians and other tradespeople must pay. It is cutting self-employment taxes, and reducing the main rate of Class 4 self-employed National Insurance contributions from 9% to 8%. As a result, you'll pay less tax on your profits. There's also an expansion of VAT relief for energy-saving materials, such as water-source heat pumps. This will apply across the UK from February 2024, and means that you'll pay 5% VAT instead of 20% when you buy or instal energy-saving materials for yourself or your customers. Other changes include an easing of the rule which could have forced households to instal heat pumps in the middle of their gardens. The government is scrapping the restriction that the units must be at least one metre from neighbouring houses if the household receives the £5,000 grant. The rule was originally put in place to mitigate concerns over the noise levels from older models. Finally, there are plans to change the tax deductibility of training costs. So, if you do a course on EV charging, for instance, you'll be able to claim more of the costs associated with it because it's relevant to your trade. Some courses benefiting from the rule change include four new qualifications that were launched by the NIC-EIC this week. The Level 3 certificates cover EV charger installation, energy storage, fire detection and fire alarms. The EV charger course is one day and covers the IET's Code of Practise for installing plug-in points together with the requirements of BS 7671. Energy storage is two days and looks at home batteries and other energy storage systems. Again, it reflects IET best practise and the requirements of BS 7671. There are two courses in fire detection and alarm systems. The one for dwellings is two days, while the one for buildings is four days. These qualifications focus on key legislation and regulations which apply to the installation, certification and maintenance of fire detection and alarms as detailed in BS5839. And why not prime yourself with our free training package made in association with BG Electrical of the Luceco Group on this exact subject. I've popped the links to all the courses in the show notes. The course in EV charging could help with an ambitious plan to instal no fewer than 30,000 plug-in points across the UK. Now, I'm pretty sure I'm going to pronounce this wrong. Landis and Gyr has teamed up with electricity company Positive Energy to create what it says will be the largest network of chargers in the country. The five-year plan will see businesses supplied with complete charging infrastructure, including installation and tap-and-go payment systems. For some, however, the rollout can't come quick enough. London's biggest minicab operator, Addison Lee, has just done a U-turn on its plans for all its cars to go to zero emissions this year. It's blaming the lack of public chargers in the capital. The firm has instead spent £30m on hybrid Volkswagen multivans. These six-seaters combine an internal combustion engine with a battery, but this has a range of just 42 miles. The firm admitted that the switch to electric cars has been harder than it had expected. Company boss Liam Gryphon says London needs more on-street trickle chargers that allow drivers without private parking to recharge cheaply overnight, as well as faster chargers to allow drivers to top up during the day. He says the electric solution is brilliant if you've got overnight charging, but most of his drivers don't. Uber, Addison Lee's bitter rival, has pledged to go totally electric by 2025. It's not just roads that need chargers, rivers do too. And the good news is that the Thames has got its first plug-in point for electric boats. The UK's first high-voltage shore power station above tidal waters has been opened on the riverbank at Lambeth. It's essentially a big battery to which UK Power Network says it will provide 1.5 MVA of energy. It's one of five planned locations in central London and the units will be available to anyone with an electric boat on the Thames. One thing holding back the rollout of chargers and other renewable projects is, of course, the shortage of electricians in the UK. The Electrical Contractors Association took its electrician recruitment campaign to the House of Commons this month to persuade the government to tackle the problem. It describes the current situation as a broken skills pipeline, which currently prevents enough people from progressing to complete their training. Compounding the problem apparently is news that's made my ghostwriter Ray as prickly as a disgruntled hedgehog, that there's a widespread perception among young people that electricians are not well paid. A new survey reveals that 14- to 25-year-olds seriously underestimate the prospects and earning potential of the trade. The majority of so-called Gen Z think Sparks' earnings are in line with average earnings, not significantly above as is the case. They also don't understand the potential for six-figure salaries when self-employed or by setting up a business. Yet these young people say their priorities are choosing their own hours, having more money, running their own business and being able to earn additional income outside of normal work. Melanie Waters, head of the Get In campaign, which encourages youngsters to consider a job on the tools, says it's important that we change young people's perceptions urgently as they're contributing to the skills gap. Last week's Question of the Week was on the subject of lighting controls and the building regulations and was taken from our free training package on the subject made in association with Lutron. The question was, an area where someone is in charge of the lighting but is usually too busy to control it, and individual users do not expect to control the lighting would be classed as what. And it seems we've finally found something that you all know a lot about as 81% of people on YouTube and 72% of people on LinkedIn knew that it was a managed space. Top marks to all who got it right. Interesting to see that our YouTube viewers follow the general rule of being better informed than LinkedIn followers. And to all of you, please do go and check out that free training package on lighting controls, and the building regs that we made at Lutron HQ in London. It's free, flexible, fully certified, and counts as an hour towards your annual CPD requirement. The link, as ever, is in the show notes. Now, just a bit of a trigger warning for our next story. Some of the details of the accident I'm about to describe are very difficult to hear and could be deeply upsetting to some, so please skip ahead if this is likely to disturb you emotionally or mentally. An engineer dubbed Mr Safety could get more than £1 million after his arm was sliced off while working on a North Sea wind farm. Darren Hoadley won a High Court ruling for damages after he suffered horrific injuries in 2018 when a rotating machine cut through him like a guillotine and amputated his left arm. The specialist wind turbine installer was checking the bearings in the mechanism that spins the blades when the incident occurred at the Rental offshore wind farm in the North Sea. The engineer put his arm through a hole in the turbine brake disc to check a series of safety pins, but was shocked when he discovered that the turbine was rotating slowly, and that his arm had become stuck. Giving evidence, Hoadley said that he couldn't move his arm, and then realised that the disc was still moving slowly and that he was going to lose his arm. The judge said, "A key feature of the accident was that the engineer thought that the brake disc was locked and immobilised and that the power was off." He said, "Hoadley therefore thought he was safe in what he was doing, but both assumptions were incorrect." The judge ruled that Siemens' Gamesa was at fault because other technicians working in the pod had previously turned on the power without properly alerting colleagues. Another cause of the accident, according to the ruling, was the silent mechanism of the devices in the pod which lulled Hoadley into a false sense of security. The court was told that Hoadley had earned his nickname Mr Safety from colleagues owing to his reputation for diligence. After the incident, Hoadley sued his employer, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, claiming it could have been avoided had he known that the power source that was slowly turning the turbine had not been deactivated. A High Court judge in London ruled that the company was predominantly to blame, meaning that Hoadley from Norfolk is eligible for compensation. The engineer has claimed more than £1m, but the final amount will be decided at a later date. Now just before we go, a heads up that Gordon has just dropped his latest video on solar panels. In it he puts the new TIS PV-Chex multifunction solar tester through its paces. We've been waiting ages to get our mitts on this bit of kit, so check it out in his video titled, How Not to Test Your Solar Installation. Again, I'll pop the link in the show notes. And a reminder that we're in the market for your stories, your projects, and your recommendations, as we'd like to share them with the wider eFIXX community. We're particularly interested in those of you who've made the switch to electric vans. Which model did you choose? How are you finding it? Would you recommend switching to your colleague? Send us a picture of yourself and your van, and indeed, send us pictures of your instals, or let us know if you've come across any new kit that's making your job easier. And just before we get to your favourite bit of the show, where I reveal last week's challenge words and winners, we want to thank our premium partners. We couldn't make the news without you. First up, they're the people who've created the Swiss Army knife of solar inverters along with all weather batteries, very much the Boy Scouts of the solar industry. It's Sunsnyk. Up next, for all your circuit protection needs, they're like having an Italian star striker in your premiership team, it's Lewden Palazzoli. The best thing to come out of Yorkshire since stainless steel, it's Doncaster Cables, the home of EV Ultra and other groundbreaking and quality cables, and finally celebrating their 60th anniversary this year with an incredible range of equipment from EV charge points through industrial sockets and switches to kit for explosive areas, plus they supplied gear for a Campari factory so they'll always have a place in my heart, it's Scame. Big thanks to you all, we really appreciate your ongoing support for the news. If you think you know the words that I've smuggled into this week's show, pop your guess into the comments and we'll dig out a goody bag prize to the first to get the right answers. Last week's words were Fandango and Ostrich, and the first person to get both right was long-term friend of the show and regular commenter Sean Dempsey, who goes by the handle Dog-whisperer7494 on YouTube. Well done, Sean, perseverance pays off, sir. Click the Get Involved link in the show notes to claim your prize. Thanks for listening to this episode of Electrical News Weekly in association with The Electric Heating Company. Make sure you subscribe to receive the next update. Thanks for listening and, until next time, have a great week. Please, please stay safe out there and remember there's no such thing as a torque-calibrated arm.