Hunt talks growth?We’d all love to see the plan...
IT’S been an interesting month for the region. The Chancellor’s Budget held some wins for the West Midlands.
Top of the list was an enhanced devolution deal worth up to £1.5bn for the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA).
Behind the scenes, the WMCA and West Midlands mayor have been working away on this since the Levelling Up White Paper released last year - and that effort has certainly paid off.
As always with announcements of this kind, there’s some subtle repackaging of what had previously been agreed– but for the most part this is a genuinely exciting development, giving local leaders far greater control over spending in key areas such as housing, transport and digital infrastructure.
The West Midlands is also in the running for an Investment Zone.
This latest iteration of the idea (somewhat paired back from the Liz Truss vision) will see 12 zones created in areas associated with universities, with the aim of driving innovation and creating highly skilled jobs.
The zones will each be backed with £80 million over five years, including generous tax incentives.
For businesses, there was some good news, some “meh” news. Helping parents back into work with meaningful reform to childcare support is a welcome development – although how the measures will help drive up the supply of childcare, a critical issue in the system, remains unclear.
The move towards full expensing around capex investment is a step in the right direction.
However, for the measure to be truly effective, it is a policy that needs to be implemented permanently in order to enable long term investment at the firm level.
In the run up to the Budget, the Chamber called on the Chancellor to tackle the escalating cost of doing business and labour market shortages, while fostering real growth and ambition.
The Chancellor took some steps in the right direction and certainly spoke the language of growth and ambition.
However, we are still waiting for a clear, ambitious, policy agenda - one that tackles the short-term issues
such as supporting businesses with energy bills and labour market shortages, while being clear on the long term-vision for industrial growth and innovation.
It is notable that while the Energy Price Guarantee for households has been extended as is, the equivalent business scheme due to go live in April will be a lot less generous than its predecessor.
Further measures to drive up availability of skills and labour would make a big difference. And while there were some additional measures on research and development (R&D) support for SMEs announced, they do not make up for the cuts to R&D tax credits coming in from April.
While there was good news for the region in the Budget, a week earlier, the Government announced construction of sections of HS2 would be delayed by two years to save money.
While this does not significantly impact Phase 1 (the bit you can see well into construction between Curzon Street, Interchange and London), it does affect Brum to Crewe and Manchester.
The Chamber, and apparently the Department for Transport, based on leaked reports, believe that any additional delays are likely to add to the long-term cost of delivery instead of saving money - particularly as inflation is forecast to come down over the coming months.
Levelling Up can only be realised if HS2 is backed in its entirety, given the broader economic benefits it will bring in years to come. One area where we are already seeing the regenerative impact of HS2 is Digbeth.
In just the last seven days there’s been two big announcements for the area.
The BBC received planning permission for their state of the art regional headquarters; the Tea Factory, and construction officially started on Stephen Knight’s Digbeth Loc.
This TV and film studio is set to create over 700 jobs and has already been confirmed as the location for a new Peaky Blinder’s movie and the first filming on site is set to commence in October this year.
In fact, there’s rather a lot going on in Digbeth and with the BBC’s activity in the region – from production of MasterChef to an Apprentice Hub connecting talented young people with local employers.
Stuart Thomas, Head of the Midlands for the BBC, will be outlining the BBC’s plans for the region, and opportunities for businesses within them, at the Greater Birmingham Business Expo on 30 March.
It’s free to attend so if this piques your interest, come on down.
Because in and amongst the challenging headlines, there is rather a lot of talent and exciting things happening in Birmingham.
Last week, we held our Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce awards. Over 1,100 delegates, incredible performances from local artists, a brilliant speech from the inimitable Chamber president Deb Leary and 12 outstanding award winners.
It’s felt a bit relentless at times, working through all of the turbulence of recent years.
I, and from the sounds of it, our delegates, certainly enjoyed taking this opportunity to pause, reflect, reconnect and have a good old celebration.
Congratulations again to all of our winners, particularly our Greater Birmingham Business of the Year, Unity Trust Bank.
We are waiting for a clear policy that tackles the issues such as supporting businesses with energy bills and labour market shortages