Below is the speech from Robert Hough, LEP Chair at the Corporate Members’ Dinner at Knowsley Hall, 19 June, 2013.
Good evening ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome to Knowsley Hall and a very warm welcome to this, our special dinner for Corporate Members of our Local Enterprise Partnership and our other hand-picked guests.
Now we all have at least one common ambition, namely to grow the Liverpool City Region economy for our businesses and to create more, better paid, jobs and thus a better quality of life.
And it is, lest we forget, growing our economy and creating more jobs that matters most to:
our Partnership
to your businesses
to this City Region.
But we are not alone in facing this challenge. It is an issue being addressed by most areas around the UK, most of whom would like to steal our lunch.
As the Prime Minister regularly reminds us, we are in a race – a global race to create new opportunities, generate new wealth and economic growth.
A global race in which every city and every region comprising UK plc must square up against its competitors – at home and abroad – to fight for its share of the action – and that’s why the International Festival for Business next year will be so important for us to make the UK’s case as a great exporting nation with world leading products and services, as well as being the top nation in Europe for inward investment.
In such a competitive and cut-throat environment, it is clear heads and focus that underpin success.
This Local Enterprise Partnership – your Local Enterprise Partnership – provides a focus for our collaborative efforts to achieve growth. There is traction through our mutual interest to drive economic growth for your businesses, on the one hand, and the wider City Region economy on the other.
Now cast your minds back just 10 years.
Liverpool had then just been named as European Capital of Culture 2008 – the dramatic culmination of a fiercely competitive bidding process, itself born out of a vision, a partnership with strong leadership and a determination to show the world the qualities of Liverpool.
Ten years ago the Paradise Street area of Liverpool was – to be blunt – an eyesore. Now it is one of Europe’s most successful, award-winning retail developments.
Land to the south of the Albert Dock was a wasteland.
The notion that the world’s greatest liners would once again berth north of the Pier Head was just a dream.
Still further north along the River Mersey, the Port of Liverpool, presented a huge opportunity.
In the opposite direction, Liverpool Airport had just been named in honour of one of the City’s most famous sons.
The potential of our manufacturing sector remained to be realised, but now it has exploded into vibrant action right round the City Region, whether it is in automotive, consumer products, glass, life science or chemicals, to name just a few.
Few would believe the huge components of offshore wind farms would be assembled on the banks of the Mersey.
These are just a few examples of how and where our economy has grown during the last decade.
The challenge for this LEP, and for you our Members, is to decide where and how we are going to grow this economy during the next 10 years, but it must be by being visionary, ambitious and bold.
And do not let us – any of us – be under any illusion that we need to not just maintain, but sustain and accelerate our rate of growth.
If you doubt the significance and importance of what needs to be done, remember the Prime Minister’s words … we are in a global race … and he is right.
So, if we are to win our rightful part of this race, we must accelerate our pace.
Progress has been substantial in the last ten years from a low base. For ten years, Liverpool was the fastest growing of any city in the UK. But despite that progress, there are today around 18,000 too few businesses in the City Region against the national average and there are too few people in work.
That is the stark measure of how much ground we have to make up in the UK alone. In today’s global economy, the challenge is even greater.
And it is a challenge we simply must overcome. We must be serious about business and job creation. We must be serious about international trade.
We must not be precious about local boundaries or whether the spotlight shines more brightly on one part of our City Region than on another.
Our best assets – and our best chance of success in this race – span the entire region. The whole is bigger than the sum of the parts.
Put differently and simply, economic development does not recognise administrative boundaries.
For example, Knowsley is home to one of the UK’s most advanced and successful automotive manufacturers – Jaguar Land Rover. Its skilled workforce travels to that plant from throughout the City Region.
In Wirral, Unilever operates a research centre of global excellence, the only one of its kind in the world within the Unilever network and in no small part down to the strength of its research alliance with our Universities and Daresbury. Unilever’s scientists and expert teams do not particularise where they are going to – it’s just to a centre of excellence and innovation.
Economic development does not recognise local boundaries….
But let me also say this – growth will come from the private sector, but the contribution, role and responsibility of the public sector in the broadest sense (whether it be our local authorities, our excellent universities and colleges, our hospitals and other public service agencies) is immense, both as major employers, but also in driving innovation and showing leadership and quality in what they do.
So economic recovery will be down to the success of the collaborative partnership of all key stakeholders, public and private.
For the future, we want to see Liverpool City Region as the habitual monopoliser of big economic prizes in England – not just as a City Region of passion, warmth and energy, but one of economic growth – a sustained flight trajectory in the top echelon of cities, by riding on the strong Liverpool brand.
To achieve that, there are four drivers:
Cohesion – recognising that a combination of resource, endeavour and targets produces great traction. Collaboration is vital, but – and this is really important – it must be for a purpose.
A focus on “real” markets and opportunities – replicating our brilliant successes we have seen in Low Carbon, SuperPort and the Visitor Economy. Our teams have worked wonders there collectively, identifying opportunities, working together to a common goal and achieving an outcome, magnified well beyond original expectation. How great it would be to roll out that same success rate in business start-ups.
Thirdly, pace – there is no time to lose – swift progress against clear objectives, encouraging major investment and expansion just as JLR and Peel Ports are doing. Manufacturing and professional firms must be encouraged to innovate; all businesses to get behind the new employer-led skills agenda, in partnership with our universities and the colleges.
And above all, we must be ambitious, visionary and bold. I mentioned earlier some of the events over the last 10 years. What are the game changers of the next 10?
By the end of this year, the LEP have to submit a Local Growth Plan to Government, who say that bids will be subject to competitive tension – the more visionary the bid, the bigger the financial reward – and dependent also on the confidence that Government has in the capacity and governance of the local area to deliver that Plan.
I challenge each of you to come forward with a big idea to drive forward economic development and create jobs – preferably multiple jobs. You have our email address. We want you, our members, to share your experience to identify that potential and these priorities for growth. The responsibility and opportunity lies with us, all of us.
And one other thing – think big, but also think about the art of the possible. Think jobs, young people and opportunity and think about the turnaround from poverty with no job, into a career providing reward and opportunity and the social wellbeing that that brings.
Much will be revealed in a week’s time, with an announcement from the Chancellor and his Comprehensive Spending Review and how much will be available for the Single Pot.
Together, we are mapping out the City Region’s route to growth. But this is only the start and we must accelerate on the progress to date. We must also remember that economies do not self-correct. Instead, to rebalance and to move forward and to create that self-affirming confidence and self-fuelling momentum requires active intervention, urgently, and that is what this LEP and you, our members, must provide.