Prosper Autumn, Black Country Chamber of Commerce magazine

Prime Minister Liz Truss and Chancellor of the Exchequer
Kwasi Kwarteng during a visit to Berkeley Modular in
Northfleet Kent, to coincide with the Government’s new
Growth Plan. But is it the long-term strategy business needs?
OPEC countries within five years. This would
allow businesses to plan with a greater
degree of certainty and for a range of
initiatives to take effect and bear results.
We must now wait and see what the new
Prime Minister may do with such an approach.
The importance of delivery
One of the challenges of our electoral
system of government is that our
democratic leaders are encouraged to vie
for media coverage by announcing new
policies or initiatives. Relatively speaking,
the responsibility for the successful delivery
of a plan comes with less glitz and coverage
and can therefore become less of a priority
than the announcement itself. Given this,
could it perhaps be timely to look at
altering how our excellent Civil Servants are
measured, with a greater emphasis placed
on the delivery of policy?
The nature of the democratic beast?
The obvious challenge for any long-term
political initiative is the nature of our
political cycles. These increasingly seem to
result in a series of short-term initiatives
designed to appeal to focus groups and
voters, rather than recognising the value of
long-term overarching strategy.
Significant ‘political churn’ clearly helps
to fuel a more short-term approach to
strategy. Two examples to illustrate this are
the fact that three of the UK’s last four Prime
Ministers have held office for little over
three years, while 12 individuals have held
the post of Minister of State for Housing
and Planning over the past 10 years.
Consequently, it is unsurprising that there
has not been greater consistency in our
planning and economic development
priorities over that period.
Paradoxically, business flourishes when it
has sufficient certainty to look ahead, and
so surely it is worth exploring ways to
remodel our systems to allow a more
consistent ordering of national economic
priorities regardless of political changes.
Strategies for the future
In the past we have floated ideas such as
appointing a Minister for FAANGs
(Facebook/Amazon/Apple/Netflix/Google).
This is based on the fact that their market
capitalisation would rank them among the
top 20 countries in the world by GDP. We
have also advocated keeping Trade
Ministers in role for the duration of a
Parliament so they can become experts on
their briefs. Furthermore, we have proposed
looking beyond Westminster when making
ministerial appointments to bring the
experience of leading business leaders into
Cabinet. This is with an aim to encourage a
constant review of how things are done to
ensure the UK’s approach to driving the
economy keeps pace with an ever-evolving
world.
Need for a Royal Commission?
The challenge, of course, is to build a
cross-party consensus around agreed
national economic priorities. This would be
no mean feat coming at a time when
political parties seem to be struggling to
find a common approach on their own
benches, let alone across the political
divide. Maybe this is a perfect opportunity
for a Royal Commission to circumvent that
impasse?
From the perspective of the wealth
creating community, it would certainly seem
to be worth trying to establish a political
accord around the prize of thinking and
planning longer-term at a national level,
allowing greater certainty and more
business-friendly conditions.
As businesspeople well know, a failure to
innovate and evolve can be fatal. However
difficult it may seem, as a country we should
not let a desire for perfect be the enemy of
good in terms of outcomes.
Rather, we should think long and hard
about letting the nature of political cycles
hamper such fundamentals as having a clear
national plan to help businesses create jobs
and wealth, and generate tax revenue. This
is all the more important when many of our
global competitors are thinking, planning
and acting in a far longer timeframe.
For more information on Richardson
please visit www.richardsons.co.uk
PROSPER AUTUMN 2022 41