IF Boost Your Region Webinar Chaired by Johnny Pawlik

Intelligence Forums’ “Boost Your Region” virtual meeting on 25th of January 2022 was chaired by Johnny Pawlik, of Mantra Media and titled “How do we provide a new sense of purpose and prosperity to areas of Britain that are oversubscribed with poverty?”. We were privileged to be joined by Members of both Houses of Parliament as well as business people who shared their thoughts on “Levelling up”.

First to speak was Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle ,a British politician who served as Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales from 2012 to 2016. She has also worked as a journalist for the Times, Independent and the Guardian weekly.

Baroness Bennett doesn't like the term “Levelling up”. This implies, she suggested, that the quality of life in London and the Southeast is better than elsewhere in the country. She prefers to talk about “boosting” or “spreading out” wealth.  Her vision is the creation of genuine prosperity – a decent life without trashing the environment – through developing strong local economies.  

As an example, she considered a £1 bag of apples produced locally then shipped for sale to supermarkets around the country which might result in the retention of c.1p in the local economy. That same bag of apples, sold locally, could result in 50p being retained by the greengrocer who in turn would source the necessary support trades and services within his region, thereby boosting the local economy. 

She lamented the lack of support for local community energy schemes, citing a mini hydro scheme in Yorkshire which powers the local community and whose profits are retained within it. 

She believes that we should not seek to attract large overseas companies, by promoting the UK as a low tax, low wage economy. We should not source from the global market, but rather, produce and grow locally. This is important for food security, and we should consider increasing the UK’s capacity through urban food growing. According to one study she said Sheffield, for example, could be 120% self-sufficient in food. 

To those who argue that we can't live without large multinationals and just in time delivery systems, because it is this that keeps down the cost of food and goods, she responds that this model is literally costing us the Earth. For example, the production of a T shirt starts with cotton grown and picked in China, India or Pakistan using cheap labour. Then it might be shipped to China or Bangladesh to be sewn, before being shipped to the UK retailer. Every shipment burns fossil fuels, and in each case the labour rates for production are low.  And once in the UK that T-shirt is likely sold in the High Street by someone on a minimum wage and a zero hour contract. Green policy would levy a “Damage tax” to ensure that local produce would be competitively priced against imports. 

We should be seeking to pay a real living wage (rather than a “minimum wage”) which allows employees a reasonable quality of life, and Green policy would back a four-day week and a universal basic income. The UK has the longest working hours in the EU except for Greece, and workers commute for twice as long (although working from home has reshaped the geography of the UK). But the time spent hitherto commuting means that we have become the highest consumers of ready meals and fast food, and this in turn has led to unhealthy eating! 

We are in a climate, nature, public health and poverty emergency.Decades of policy decisions have been made for the benefit of large multinationals not small local businesses. Such policies need to be changed to lead to different lifestyles, and ultimately strong local economies.

Next to speak was Liz Mayes, the Chief Executive of “The Common Room” (“CR”) a unique heritage venue in the centre of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. Liz agreed with a lot of what Baroness Bennett had said, and reminded us that a very good quality of life was already available in Newcastle! 

CR is a charity, formed to lead the restoration of Neville Hall (previously known as The Mining Institute), home of The North of England Institute of Mining & Mechanical Engineers.The historic building, has undergone major conservation work and was reopened to the public in 2021. 

While her background with the CBI and Make UK (formerly the Engineering Employers' Federation), has not been in the heritage sector, nor, before 1997 , when she moved up to study, has it been in the North East, she is passionate about her mission. This she describes is to inspire the next generation of manufacturing and engineering and to support the region’s future economic growth through education and engagement activities. CR will also provide a range of public spaces for innovation, collaboration, events, lectures, weddings and more.

The average person, she says doesn’t see the UK’s manufacturing base, which is largely hidden away in different parts of the country to which they don't often go. Liz took on the CR challenge because she wanted to change this. In a small space of time, her response has been to bring together as partners, diverse groups from small companies such as renewable energy companies and geological consultants to large local businesses such as Nissan. While she wants the CR to be a hub for engineers to meet, her aim is to raise awareness of the potential for the region.

Aaron Bell the MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme (“NUL”) continued the theme.  He believes that people voted for him in 2019, not simply because they disliked Jeremy Corbyn, and wanted to get Brexit done (62% of the constituency voted to leave the EU), but certainly because they wanted to “sort out” the town. 

As one of the new intake of Conservative MP’s, he won what had been a Labour seat since Josiah Wedgewood defected to Labour from the Liberals, 100 years ago. In November 2021, he voted against the amendment to defer the suspension of Owen Paterson MP, and in February 2022 submitted a letter of no confidence in the PM. 

He has lived and worked in Staffordshire for the last 14 years as a software architect and development manager for bet365, a company which provides thousands of well-paid and secure jobs in the local economy while resisting the temptation to migrate offshore for tax reasons. He is also the co-owner of NUL-based financial technology start up DivideBuy which employs over 40 people.

Aaron reminded us that NUL is not only a market town but was also, as recently as the Tony Blair era, a pit town from which coal was shipped to the potteries in Stoke-on-Trent. It has a substantial middle class and benefits from one of the best sixth form colleges in the region, as well as its proximity to Keele and Birmingham University with its world class science and innovation department. 

However, NUL suffers all the problems associated with the evaporation of the High Street into shopping malls and the rise of online retailers such as Amazon. This has resulted in an empty town centre, where lack of civic pride and high unemployment risks the death of aspiration. 

His vison is that the provision of new start-up space and a small amount of residential development, would recreate a community, improve the sense of pride in a town where people would live and work, and in turn revitalise aspiration. It was Lisa Nandy, (Labour MP for Wigan), he said, who  first identified the differences in values between those living in towns, who are far more likely to believe that politicians don’t care about them or their area, and those living in the socially liberal cities nearby. The Conservatives have run with this challenge, he said, and established a £1 Bn Towns Fund to boost local investment.

His challenge has been to reimagine the NUL centre and bring a new vision to fruition. Since January 2020, Aaron has been an unpaid member of the board of “Town Deal, NUL” which submitted its Newcastle Town Investment Plan to the Ministry of Housing a year later, resulting in an award of £23.6m.  That however cannot be the end of it. The Town Deal must attract culture as well as business, and engage in beautifying NUL to compete with other areas. He cautioned that commercial spaces at low rent is not all that is needed - business rates are still too high and Marginal Relief for Corporation Tax is too steep.

In summary he believes that “Levelling up” is about raising aspiration.

Our next speaker was Stephen Hammond, the MP for Wimbledon, Raynes Park, Morden and Motspur Park. Born in Southampton, he studied Economics at London University, and following a successful career in the City, has served as the MP for Wimbledon since his election in 2005. He was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Transport (2012-14) and a Minister of State at the Department of Health and Social Care (2018-19).

Most people in Wimbledon did not want Brexit done, he said, so his experience is opposite to that of Aaron! He believes that “Levelling up” is about the basic Conservative philosophy of creating opportunity.  We are, he said, one of the least socially mobile countries, so Levelling up must in part be about creating access to education.  

It is also about creating community.  As more people work from home, fewer, travel to town and city centres, and local High Streets have become increasingly important, as has the creation of a high-quality of life in local communities. 

During the industrial revolution, he said, the major connectivity decisions were about transportation. Whether, for example, to invest in railways or canals? Now the conversation is broadband connectivity. While transportation infrastructure is fundamental, it is the Internet which enables local economies to develop and grow to support local communities.

He questioned why tech. suburbs have grown up around Oxford and Cambridge but not our other great universities, and suggested that herein lies another opportunity to “Level up”. 

But while he recognised the importance of “Levelling up” in the “Red Wall” constituencies he reminded us that inequality and poverty challenges are just as important in cities such as London as they are in the regions. Levelling up, he believes applies to the whole country – what is good for Wigan is also good for Wimbledon. 

When asked how antisocial behaviour and gang culture can be changed, he suggested that part of the solution would be to create wider access to alternative activities, e.g access to support. He stressed the importance of creating local role models too, while children are at school. He suggested that different approaches such as rigorously removing graffiti, even if this has to be done numerous times, will help to engender pride in the local community, and to do this very local funds need to be administered by local people.

Svenja Keller is the Founder of SK Inspire (“SKI”), which provides Financial Coaching and Life Planning. She recently started SKI after moving back to Worcestershire from London where she had worked as Partner and Head of Wealth Planning at Killik & Co. 

Svenja agreed that “Levelling Up” is ill defined, as is the measure of its success. Should London, which consistently scores lowest in well-being statistics, be the benchmark? In terms of community, too , London scores low. Her personal experience in starting a business, is that many people in Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, for example, have really good business connections and have set out to help her in a way that she had never experienced in London. 

Keith Madeley MBE  spoke next.  Keith has a high profile in the County of Yorkshire which he uses to promote and support a number of charities and businesses. Unfortunately connectivity problems demonstrated the need for robust broadband across the country in order to clearly hear all speakers.  

Next to share his views was Thomas O'Brien FRSA, who founded “Tom Wrote It”. Tom provides bespoke content writing & PR services covering many sectors including healthcare, consumer, property, law and music

He raised the issue of “Levelling up” the huge inequality in the wealth of companies that operate in the UK but pay a modest amount of tax here. In the past Cadburys, in addition to paying taxes, contributed to the local community through building homes for employees at Bourneville Village. In contrast, today’s largest tech companies don’t even pay their “fair share” of tax while, in the UK, some of those contributing to their wealth here could be on Universal Credit. 

The market cap of some of these companies is huge. Apple, for example, has a market cap of US$3 Trillion cf. UK GDP (in 2020) of $2.7 Trillion. Other tech companies such as Alphabet, Amazon and Facebook also have an enormous market cap cf. Unilever which has a market cap of $133Bn. Tom posed the question “how do you level up this inequality and transfer wealth from corporations to communities?”.

He suggested that tax is the solution and outlined a number of options including a levy on profits, an annual tax on companies with offices offshore, and ultra-high corporation tax or property taxes.