An overview of the CBI Conservative Conference Fringe and business reception

The fringe event assessed the need for business and government partnership and the importance of regional development and was chaired by The Telegraph’s Chief Political Correspondent, Christopher Hope. Other panellists included:

• Tim Hames, Director General, BVCA
• Andy Street, Metro Mayor for the West Midlands
• Dame Carolyn Fairbairn, Director-General, CBI

The need for partnership between business and government

Kicking-off proceedings, CBI Director-General, Carolyn Fairbairn, set out the case for the partnership of the century between government and business. Against the backdrop of ongoing Brexit uncertainty, strengthening economic headwinds and stagnating productivity growth, Carolyn argued that by working together, business and government could build an economy that is not only more prosperous, but also fairer.

With Andy Street, Mayor for the West Midlands, sat alongside Carolyn, she emphasised that the relationship between the government and business, begins at a local level. However, Carolyn also recognised that the onus was not solely on government, and that business has a part to play. By working in partnership such policies as reaching the net zero carbon emission goal by 2050, and improving the apprenticeship levy, can be reached.

Finally, with the event taking place just hours after the Chancellor’s speech, Carolyn praised announcements he made on investing in infrastructure. However, as the CBI’s response to the Chancellor’s speech referenced, it seemed as if there was a missing page, that failed to respond to the serious rupture that would be caused by failing to secure a deal with the EU.

The importance of regional development

Mayor of the West Midlands, Andy Street, focused on how a strong partnership could help achieve regional development. He went on to discuss regional developments in the West Midlands and his belief that the national governments were partly responsible for regional policy.

Street argued that this resurgence can be filtered down to five lessons; firstly, he strongly argued for investment in infrastructure on a local level; this included the supply of housing, which Street believes is the strongest lever for growth in a region.

The second point made by the Mayor was that a rapid extension of transport links internally and between regions would be pivotal to create a base for industry, citing the importance of HS2, something the CBI has long campaigned for.

As well as infrastructure, Mr Street’s next lesson was to play to the strengths of any given area. He noted how each area of the country has its relative strength such as the developing automotive industry for the Midlands and highlighted the need for greater mobility behind education and as well as the need to get behind technical training. This is idea of reigniting regions is featured in the CBI’s new report Powering Up Places: Unlocking regional growth through devolution, which sets out how to restart the devolution journey to maximise the potential of all regions in England.

Read Powering Up Places: Unlocking regional growth through devolution

Finally, Mr Street agreed with Carolyn that there is reason to be optimistic, especially in the Midlands where the Commonwealth Games are being hosted in 2022, and Coventry is to be the city of culture in 2021. Alongside this optimism though, Mr Street highlighted the importance of business and government working together and how the political class could learn lessons from business practice particularly in the Brexit negotiations.

Looking ahead to the future and the use of technology

Wrapping up the event, Tim Hames focused his comments on how future technological developments would change the way business and government worked together to deliver on a partnership.

Mr Hames began by analysing the UK as a business, and noted what would be appealing about it, if it were for sale. He emphasised the need for focus on education as the second largest export industry and pointed to the UK’s strength in high-end manufacturing.

The Director-General of BVCA concluded his remarks by asking government and businesses to think ahead to 2030, citing evidence that the next decade will see more technological developments than in the previous thousand years.

Mr Hames said this would result in two powerful social consequences. Firstly, jobs done by humans will largely be automated and secondly, life expectancy will increase. Hames suggested that this would change the traditional way we organise society and that the political class need to be proactive in working with the business community to adapt to these changes.