Views made clear to cabinet

Feb 24 2010 by Martyn Pellew, The Journal

LAST week's cabinet meeting in the North East was a fantastic opportunity to showcase some of the region's current and future business success stories.

It was also too good a chance to miss to highlight how Government can do more to make sure these continue.

With a heavy focus on the shift to a low-carbon economy, exciting developments such as Clipper Windpower Marine’s new factory on the Tyne and Thorn Lighting’s innovative work on next generation lighting at its Spennymoor site were rightly highlighted.

But many more businesses grabbed the opportunity to inform cabinet ministers about their own projects, and the policy changes needed to help them succeed.

Of course, the mothballing of Corus Teesside Cast Products facilities cast something of a shadow over the day, and the visit was also timely to ensure ministers were well aware of feelings within the region about this and the support which is needed now.

Nevertheless, the cabinet had barely had chance to take a breath of the North East air before cynics began questioning the cost of the visit, and whether it amounted to anything more than electioneering.

In fact, the collective costs to North East businesses to obtain this kind of access to cabinet ministers by travelling to London would have dwarfed the price of Thursday’s events – and it would have taken months, if not years, to arrange.

It is surely right that ministers should be tasked with getting a personal view of what’s happening in this region – as they have done in others – and with having a focused, collective discussion on the relevance or otherwise of their policies to our part of the country.

It would be naive in 2010 to expect politicians not to engage in electioneering and there is no doubt that a certain amount of that went on. But we should also expect that what they heard in this region will be taken seriously and will affect the content of a forthcoming manifesto.

Both Conservative and Liberal Democrat politicians were in the region on the same day to put alternative points of view – and we would expect precisely the same approach from them.

We made sure that ministers understood that all new legislation must meet and pass the economic recovery test of helping stimulate growth.

Whether it’s our frustrations on planning policy, concerns at access to finance, or the need to improve transport infrastructure in the region, North East businesses took the chance last week to get their points across.

Whether the visit was truly worthwhile depends on how quickly we get action in response.

:: Martyn Pellew is chairman of the North East Chamber of Commerce