Business News
The plan for the future
PF: Councils don’t make money and working together we can achieve so much more. Businesses make stuff, create jobs, pay taxes and most people now recognise that the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local enterprise Partnership is doing great work in bringing the private-public sectors together.
PK: Part of this is getting the councillors and an elected mayor to recognise the importance of our place. I’ve got two years to make sure we work in harmony with Coventry, the Black Country and the West Midlands Combined Authority to get things really going and ensure we leave our successors a great legacy.
On getting the message across: PF: We need to ensure that everyone knows the West Midlands window is open for business.
PK: We have got to get the message clear so that politicians in London take us seriously because I don’t think they have in the past. We were sort of second fiddle to George Osborne’s Northern Powerhouse but they’re taking us seriously now.
PF: I agree, and that’s where the mayor is going to be an important role.
PK: Marketing Birmingham focuses on helping more foreign investment so that’s going to leave the space open for the Chambers to come in with business support and massive lobbying. Again, Marketing Birmingham and the Chambers can work together for the region.
PF:We already have the Greater Birmingham Chambers and we’re quite good in working in harmony even though we also have numerous divisions in the Chamber. We are working on growing areas like Future Faces and the Asian Business Chamber of Commerce and they could become national organisations. With the geography of the Chambers group, from Burton to Solihull, we
are already working closely together and they get the message of the benefits of working as Greater Birmingham. We’re quite relaxed about it because it is working well and the
“satellite” Chambers can tap into the resources we have in Birmingham. When you consider other huge cities, say Sao Paulo with 25 million
people, the Combined Authority we are talking about is only four and a half million people. So we have no option but to try to maximise the impact of our area on a world stage.
Paul Faulkner and Paul
Kehoe discuss the region’s most pressing issues
On boosting investment in the region: PK: If we believe we are a world-class city region we need world-class infrastructure, world-class education, world-class skills. But we will have a productivity gap of £80 billion by 2030 and we
should not be accepting that as the norm. We are only going to improve that by getting companies and industry and business generally to reduce that gap. During my term of office, HS2 should be underway and we need to make sure that the connections are absolutely first class.
PF: It would be a travesty to do it on the cheap and we must ensure the right levels of investment are attracted.
PK: We can’t afford to cut corners. For instance, if we don’t invest in the airport and build on global connectivity, Manchester and London will grab it.
PF: If that were to happen you couldn’t be a world-class region while the other two take the initiative.
PK: The Chamber’s role in all of this is key to success because no-one else is going to lobby as powerfully on behalf of business. The Chamber has many members who all want to be successful. Because of their disparate nature, you have got very different needs and wants. But the one thing that binds them together is economic success and the Chamber can articulate that because they are all members. We need to say we are your voice and we are going to speak out loud until you tell us to shut up. That voice needs to be region-wide.
PF: The better you get and the bigger you get, success breeds success. And the Midlands Engine stretches from the Wash to Offa’s Dyke.
On the future of Birmingham: PK:We all need to get on board with Sir John (Sir John Peace, chair of the Midlands Engine). And we need to push ourselves to get involved.
PF: I agree. We need to change the mentality of waiting for things to be done to you. The Chamber will play the role of facilitating that and we have held a major event recently to talk about the Combined Authority and the mayor.
PK: It is, of course, vital that we get the right person as elected mayor. And, importantly, an elected mayor will be able to say that he or she has the mandate from the whole of the West Midlands – not just Solihull or Burton. We need someone who is charismatic and driven. PF: …and someone who is going to make a commitment to business especially if whoever is elected is not from a business background.
October 2016 CHAMBERLINK7
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