Our region expects a backer of enterprise

Jul 4 2007 by Bill Gleeson, Liverpool Daily Post

Will the new PM create the right climate for business? Bill Gleeson investigates

GORDON BROWN has been in power for a little over a week. He has changed the faces in the Cabinet and just yesterday outlined his vision for his time as Prime Minister.

But what do business leaders need from the new Prime Minister? What can he do differently that will make Merseyside firms better able to compete in international markets and more profitable?

In some senses, what is on offer is predictable. Mr Brown set the country’s economic course and tax regime during 10 years as Chancellor, presiding over a decade of unprecedented economic growth in Britain.

Before the 1997 election, Labour set about wooing British business, telling the likes of the CBI and IoD and the City of London that it wanted to create the conditions in which enterprise could thrive. Yet many of those same institutions have complained, at times rather loudly, about many aspects of policy.

Damian Waters, CBI director in the North West, said business needs to see a continuation of the stable economic conditions that Mr Brown helped foster while he was Chancellor.

Mr Waters said: “The key for business is always continuity. However, the CBI has plainly become concerned by the frequency with which Mr Brown used the word change as he stood on the threshold of Number 10 Downing Street last Wednesday.

“We give Gordon Brown credit for the benign economic conditions of the past. We would be concerned with change for change sake,” said Mr Waters.

But there are other issues that top the CBI’s concerns too.

Mr Waters said: “We would like to see simplification of the tax system, reduce the burden it places on business.

“What we don’t want is window dressing that doesn’t really get to the crux of the matter.”

Mr Waters also pointed to skills training for young people: “We need to sort out the problem that occurs between the ages of 11 and 16 in this country. Almost half of the population don’t get five grades A to C at GCSE. Science in schools, in particular, seems to have become a discarded subject. We need action on that. If you get that right, the 18 and 21 year-olds flow through

“Gordon Brown has not been vociferous on climate change. The CBI takes it very seriously. We would like to see the Prime Minister come forward with some real solutions about what businesses and private individuals can do,” he said.

One issue that has concerned the CBI for many years is the way England’s regions are governed.

“A lot of the people champion- ing the regional agenda are no longer in the Cabinet. So it will be interesting to see whether Mr Brown has his own agenda on that with city regions and reg- ional agencies,” said Mr Waters.

HE ADDED: “One of the things he should do is cut down on bureaucracy we have been handed, largely from his Treasury.

“When he first became Chancellor, Mr Brown talked a lot about enterprise culture, but an awful lot of the actions he has undertaken since act against enterprise. I would hope it’s one of the first issues the new Business and Enterprise Department tackles.

“Splitting the education department between pre-16 and post-16 is good.

Locally, business leaders also want to see continuity – this time of the recent improvement in the region’s economic performance.

Dave Moorcroft, acting chief executive of The Mersey Partnership (TMP) said: “The Liverpool city region is one of the fastest growing in the UK and we’re looking to Gordon Brown and his new government to complete and consolidate its renaissance, rather than seeing disproportionate amounts of money going to the South-east. Against the backdrop of our £1bn tourism industry, we’d like to see a full recognition of the important opportunities Liverpool’s Capital of Culture will bring to the UK.

“Entrepreneurial activity among our 18-24 year olds is twice the UK average and we’d also welcome further investment in our schools, colleges and universities as a springboard for growing our future business base.

“With the increase in large-scale private investment by companies such as Peel and Grosvenor, positive moves to create a swifter and more efficient planning process would enable accelerated delivery of large scale projects.

“Finally, Liverpool John Lennon Airport is a key success story and we’d ask Mr Brown to consider a review of air passenger duty to ease the way for its continued growth Alongside this, we’d like to see the Port of Liverpool recognised as a critical economic driver for the north, with appropriate levels of investment in its growth and supporting infrastructure.”

Former head of Manchester Business School and owner of the Rodney Street based Ideopolis International economics consultancy, Professor Tom Cannon, said: “Much of Mr Brown’s rhetoric over the last few weeks could have been designed specifically to meet the needs of our great city and region. Education is our first priority also.

“Virtually every measure of attainment and aspiration finds us unfit for purpose in the 21st century. The centralised solutions of the last 10, 20 and 30 years have failed with Training and Enterprise Councils, Learning and Skills Councils, etc building bureaucracies that feed money into schemes and structures and achieve nothing.

“Mr Brown should devolve real power to local teachers, educators and businesses firmly rooted in the local community.

He talks about enterprise, but Merseyside and much of the North, Scotland and Wales is still an entrepreneurial desert, partly because local entrepreneurs and ideas are ignored. A National Entrepreneurship Commission, on the lines of our Merseyside Entrepreneurship Commission is needed but with a brief to be radical on issues of tax, the informal economy, market opportunities, payments and property.

“While he is trying to be inclusive, he should try listening to the distant voices of people in the North, while cutting back on the makeweights and middlemen (and women) whose panaceas and placebos have failed.”

FRANK McKENNA, chairman of business lobby group Downtown Liverpool in Business, said: “When Mr Brown became Chancellor in ‘97, he was keen to promote himself as enterprise champion who wanted British business to be the most competitive in the world, but unfortunately his actions since then have added to the weight of bureaucracy business faces and that has got in the way of meeting his own objective of being a lean economy.

“Hundreds of millions of pounds have been spent and we still have the skills gap. We have lots of jobs available, but a lot of our own people are not skilled enough to take them.

“I think Brown will have local government reform on the agenda because he has put Hazel Blears in charge of that department and I know she wants to move that forward.

“We have to sort out the quangocracy. There has been some little bits of reform, but not sufficient reform so far.

“Liverpool needs a full-time political leader, call them what you want, elected mayor, full-time council leader or chief executive, but they need to be full-time for the city.”

billgleeson