‘Building our Industrial Strategy’, Green Paper, January 2017, HM Government
Response from East Midlands Chamber (Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire,
Leicestershire)
1. Introduction
East Midlands Chamber is pleased to have the opportunity to respond to the Government’s
Green Paper ‘Building our Industrial Strategy’. The Chamber represents and supports over
4,000 businesses across Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire and, in doing so,
works with partners in the public and private sector locally, regionally, nationally and
internationally.
Supporting this submission, the Chamber has joined with other Chambers across the
Midlands Engine geography to develop an additional response, highlighting the shared
business priorities across the East and West Midlands.
As the Government negotiates the UK’s exit from the EU there is a real opportunity for
domestic policy to underpin an exciting vision for a successful UK economy for the long
term. To do this, policy must be bold and leadership demonstrated from across the public
and private sectors.
2. Overarching comments
The Chamber welcomes the emphasis on place-sensitivity within the Green Paper,
recognising that a one-size fits all approach to UK growth won’t deliver results. The East
Midlands economy is rich with economic assets, including large OEMs such as Rolls-Royce,
Toyota, Bombardier, JCB and Caterpillar, world leading universities, the UK’s largest pure
freight airport and a strong north-south infrastructure, with land that’s affordable and able
to be developed. We believe that it’s this mix of strengths that give us a great opportunity
to shape – and ultimately benefit from – such an approach.
The emphasis on productivity growth in the Green paper is commendable. With
manufacturing jobs playing a more significant role in the East Midlands economy than
anywhere else in the country, we believe we have the biggest potential to benefit from
such a focus.
However, we would stress that productivity can at times be a crude measurement, and
comparisons across different places aren’t always easily possible. We’d also stress in our
response the importance of introducing measures to enhance competitiveness, supporting
businesses to win orders and opportunities both at home and overseas. A focus on
enhanced competitiveness will lead to growth, with productivity gains often being an
inevitable by-product of this. Given the diversity of the supply-chains based in the East
Midlands, leaving the EU create opportunities to improve their competitiveness against
non-UK businesses, through innovation, diversification and the creation of a more
favourable regulatory and fiscal environment for them to succeed in.
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Finally, when consulting our members on the Green Paper, one message has come through
consistently and clearly: A proper strategy must have clearly articulated, time-bound and
measurable goals. Other initiatives and strategies within Government must be aligned to
the Industrial Strategy and it must have meaningful buy-in from all departments.
3. Our members’ top priorities within the Green Paper
In producing our response we surveyed members on the key pillars that they felt were
important for their businesses. We also held three specific Industrial Strategy engagement
events – one each in Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire – meeting with over
150 businesses and our local MPs. In addition to this we focused our 4 April Manufacturing
and Engineering Conference on opportunities within the Industrial Strategy, gathering
feedback and ideas from the 240 delegates that attended that conference.
The points below highlight the top issues that came from these consultations.
3.1
Addressing the skills gap must be top priority
Availability of skills is our members’ top concern. At all levels within businesses – and
across all sectors – our members report struggles to recruit staff with the right skills and
approach needed to do the job.
To develop an economy fit for the future, it is essential that we focus on addressing the
skills gaps within the high productivity sectors where we perform well, such as engineering
and manufacturing. The way to do this includes improving all-ages careers guidance,
ensuring it is cognisant of the opportunities that exist. Lifelong learning will be especially
important in sectors where there are likely to be substantive changes in the future and
those sectors that have very fluid processes/structures.
Many politicians have spoken about a parity of esteem between vocational and academic
routes. For this to become a reality it is essential that a focus within an industrial strategy
has buy-in across the different departments of Government, including the Department for
Education. The new T-level routes will need meaningful collaboration between business
and education to be successful, and our members stand ready to deliver that.
A focus on basic skills is important to the majority of modern workplaces, but soft skills,
such as those around communication, collaboration and problem solving, are even more
so. Employers can train a new recruit to do a job, but they can’t train attitude.
Finally, there must be a much greater prominence on digital skills. Many of the jobs of
tomorrow don’t exist today. A strategy must also deliver for what we want to look like
rather than just focus on today’s problems. Digital skills will continue to grow in importance
within business and there is an opportunity for us to take a global lead in recognising this
in terms of how we educate our young people.
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3.2
Intra- and inter-regional transport infrastructure will unlock
opportunities
The East Midlands has natural advantages for growth – our central location and availability
of land provide opportunities for connecting to the rest of the UK and internationally that
other areas do not have. Unsurprisingly, this has resulted in strong transport, logistics and
distribution sectors based in the East Midlands. Situated between our three largest cities,
East Midlands Airport is the UK’s largest pure freight airport, a new Strategic Rail Freight
Interchange is currently being developed and we are planning for the future arrival of an
HS2 station at Toton.
It is essential that the opportunities these bring are maximised, specifically by improving
connectivity into these strategic sites from the rest of the East Midlands, and through
improving connections between the East and the West Midlands. Failure to do this will limit
agglomeration benefits and a realisation of the time efficiencies that a joined up transport
infrastructure creates.
The work of Midlands Connect and its moves towards a sub-national transport body has
the opportunity to rectify this. However, being better joined-up will not alone deliver all
the improvements needed. Greater investment is required to ensure intra-regional
networks are fit for purpose and have adequate resilience to meet the needs that our
business growth demands. HS2 phase 2 has the potential to deliver a step-change for the
East Midlands and it is essential that an Industrial Strategy backs it.
3.3
Old ways of thinking must not constrain new international and
inward-investment opportunities
East Midlands businesses have seen strong growth in international trading since the
referendum in June 2016, with our members – particularly our manufacturers – looking to
exploit the opportunities created by a weak pound. This growth is not just in existing
markets, with members reporting to us active moves to develop new markets and
customer bases.
It is essential that these businesses are supported. For smaller businesses, or those
looking to go overseas for the first time, support for market research and trade missions
is one very practical way that they can be aided. There is also an opportunity to explore
new ways of backing those that trade online in multi-platform environments, current using
high-charging platforms such as Amazon and eBay. Other countries have explored creating
new platforms for selling these goods and services online and it is worthy of further
exploration in a post-Brexit UK.
We are also seeing an increase in the EU-based companies that supply our larger
businesses enquiring about establishing a presence in the East Midlands to be closer to
their customers. The main queries these businesses have around access to skills, energy
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and businesses premises, are picked up elsewhere in this submission. It is essential we
can answer those questions when the enquiries come.
There is also a new opportunity, building on our location and the strengths identified
earlier, to revisit the concept of developing an inland Freeport around the airport and
future location of HS2. Previous work has been done on this as part of an attempted
devolution deal in the East Midlands. Our exiting of the EU creates a new impetus to revisit
this idea, creating a novel space in the centre of the UK serviced by excellent
infrastructure, which can act as a real spur for growth.
3.4
Digital must have a higher profile
As previously said, there is an opportunity for the UK to lead the world in terms of the new
industrial revolution and we must be bold in recognising this in the investment we make
today.
Fast, reliable, affordable broadband will be an enabler in allowing this to happen and must
be delivered to all businesses and residences alike. Skills strategies must recognise the
future primacy of this area and businesses must be supported by policy to invest in
automation, training and use of big data to become world leaders in Industry 4.0.
There is an opportunity for the country to show real ambition and vision in this area and
it must not be missed.
3.5
Affordable energy and low carbon technologies present a real
opportunity
The availability of affordable and reliable energy is a central issue for business. The East
Midlands has an interest in this area as a whole. It has natural resources, large-scale
energy production and – reflecting our manufacturing strengths – high-energy usage
businesses. However, this has also resulted in the Midlands businesses and universities
being a centre for the development of new low carbon business practices and the energyefficient technologies.
These practices and technologies are in growing demand globally, and this will only
heighten over coming years. In addition to meeting the needs of business growth
domestically, there is an opportunity for the UK to become a leader in this area and to
export this expertise across the world. To realise this opportunity, innovation and
development in this area must be supported.
3.6
Scale-up growth is as central to success as start-up
Entrepreneurship is an important trait within the East Midlands and business start-up and
survival rates remain important indicators for economic well-being. However, reflecting
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the strength and breadth of our supply-chain businesses, there is great opportunity for
further scale-up of existing successful companies.
Supporting these businesses – often SMEs – to become more competitive, to further
develop their processes and to diversify their customer bases has potential to realise great
growth in the region. Barriers to this include access to leadership and management
training, a confusing business support landscape and/or inadequate business support
focused on this specific area.
Improving the offering to these businesses in the East Midlands will not only support them
to win more contracts against international competition but also will improve the ability of
those businesses higher up the chain to succeed thanks to a more competitive, responsive
supply-chain.
3.7
Chambers must be at the centre of structures to deliver growth
The Green Paper rightly focuses on the appropriate structures for delivery. Businesses
report to us fatigue with the current landscape in the East Midlands, which can appear
disjointed, overly politicised and often too focused on geographic boundaries that have
little relevance to the realities of doing business. While there have been some great
programmes delivered in the East Midlands, on the whole this complexity hinders business
growth.
We believe that Chambers provide a presence, consistency and stability not replicated
anywhere else in the Midlands landscape. Businesses pay an annual fee to be members of
the Chamber and are actively engaged in our work on a level not replicated elsewhere in
the region. We have no political affiliations and a strong track record of working with
partners from across the public and private sector. We are driven purely by what is best
for our members and so, when considering future models for business engagement, it is
essential that Chambers have an active role in developing and delivering this. To this end,
we look forward to continuing and deepening our engagement with the Midlands Engine
and all other bodies and partnerships that have a role to play in this.
4. Working together to deliver measurable success
East Midlands Chamber is pleased to have this opportunity to share the above priorities
from our members with you. We are happy to support Government in achieving its
objectives as laid out in the Green paper, and ensuring that our successes can be readily
identified and championed.
We believe that the experience of businesses in the East Midlands has a key role to play
in the further development of this strategy and to this end look forward to continuing our
work with you on this, developing an Industrial Strategy that can deliver real impact for
businesses in the East Midlands and across the rest of the UK.
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To discuss further any items within this submission, please contact:
Scott Knowles, Chief Executive, East Midlands Chamber (Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire,
Leicestershire) by email at [email protected] or telephone 0333 320 0333 ext
2024, or
Chris Hobson, Director of Policy and External Affairs, East Midlands Chamber (Derbyshire,
Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire) by email at [email protected] or telephone
0333 320 0333 ext 2230
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