The new chair of CBI Wales on diversity a EU trade deal and the M4 Relief Road

The creativity and collaboration created in response to the pandemic needs to be “bottled” to improve the competitiveness of the Welsh economy, while it is time to move on from the M4 Relief Road, says the new chair of CBI Wales Kathryn Roberts.

Ms Roberts, senior partner at the Cardiff office of international law firm Eversheds Sutherland, where it employs 450, will take over as chair next January, succeeding Wayne Harvey, former senior partner in Wales of professional advisory firm Deloitte.

Originally from Llandeilo, she said that while progress had been made, there was still work to be done to get more women and those from ethnic minorities into senior roles.

While CBI Wales is far from being a single-issue lobbying body, it put a huge amount of time and energy into making the case for the Welsh Government to deliver a M4 Relief Road south of Newport.

Despite a report from an independent planning inspector recommending the £1.2bn project, First Minister Mark Drakeford rejected the scheme on cost and environmental grounds last year.

A commission, chaired by Sir Terry Burns, is now looking at alternative measures to address congestion – which has ceased to be an issue during the pandemic – on the existing motorway, particularly around the Brynglas Tunnels at peak times. This will require significant investment in public transport.

Ms Roberts, who joined the CBI Wales council in 2015 and has been serving recently as vice-chair, said: “It’s no secret that the CBI was disappointed with that, but what is done is done. The interesting thing around that is that we have a different set of circumstances to contend with and nobody knows what congestion is going to look like longer-term.

“It has been significantly reduced during the pandemic, but how will it bounce back?

“My gut feeling is there will still be an issue around the Brynglas Tunnels and we will need to do something about it, but I sense a period of reflection is required and the ball is now very much in the Welsh Government’s court to come back with alternative.”

She said that the pandemic has shown a nimbleness of response both at Welsh and ��Ƶ government levels, working alongside business.

She added: “You have got to take the positive out of the negative. People have been extraordinarily resilient.

“If you could bottle all that energy and positivity and maintain that going forward, I think we [the Welsh economy] could be dangerous, I really do.

“We talk a lot of being a small nation, but the access we have to government is really tangible. I have had time with Mark Drakeford and there were ways that I thought we could help him, not paid services, but as a global business.

“Ministers are very accessible and we have an enormous advantage because we are small and nimble, so if you could just bottle some of that creativity we have seen in the last ew months and keep it going and not revert to type.”

She added: “So we should give credit to some pretty extraordinary responses to some pretty extraordinary circumstances.

“Ian Price [CBI Wales director] and his team have done a fantastic job on engaging with the membership and we have weekly calls, where there is very often someone from Welsh and ��Ƶ governments on board.

“Yes, sometimes they are on transmit as they have key messages to share, but more likely they are in listening mode.

“There is a very wide [CBI] membership base with diverse views, but they are listening to the problems on the ground, so I think in that sense we have very good lines in.”

But is this collaboration in Wales based on too small a gene pool?

She said: “I think we could do a lot more around getting the views of the next generation.

“There are a lot of people in their 50s who have experience and that is massively important.

“Sadly, I am old enough to have worked through two recessions, so you do acquire knowledge, but equally if we are planning for the future, let’s not ignore and respect the fact that a couple of generations down they have very different priorities to us, and in listening more to the voice of the younger generation we can learn much more as well.”

The details of the ��Ƶ Government’s Shared Prosperity Fund, which will replace European Union structural funding, from which Wales has received £4bn over the past 20 years, have yet to be revealed.

The Welsh Government says that, whatever the amount, how it is spent should be a devolved economic development matter; and there are those who believe that it should then be further “devolved” to a city region level.

Ms Roberts said: “What we want is consistency and an element of collaboration, so whether that is Welsh Government or the ��Ƶ Government holding the purse-strings [of the Shared Prosperity Fund], I don’t have a particular view on that, but what we do not want is political infighting, but some form of political consensus and a joining-together of views to try and come out with the best solution for Wales.”

Wales currently has a number of devolved taxes, such as the Land Transaction Tax.

While it currently also has powers to vary the three bands of personal tax by 10%, whether to diverge from England will be a matter for the next Welsh Government following next year’s Senedd elections.

While not advocating any particular rates of income tax, Ms Roberts said: “The ultimate goal is for Wales to be a highly competitive place to do business in.

“One of the really interesting things that has come out of lockdown is the approach to working.

“We have a lot of clients in London who are telling me they are just going to move out because they actually don’t need to be sitting in an office in Canary Wharf anymore.

“So wouldn’t it be fantastic if we could attract those people to not only come and visit and play in Wales, but to live here too?

“So their place of work may not officially be in Wales, but they are here and this is where they would be paying taxes and bringing wealth into communities too. So, inevitably, I think we are going to see movement on taxes across the board in the ��Ƶ.”

Ms Roberts added there was still much to done in terms of gender and ethnic diversity in the workplace.

She said: “There is some good news and progress has been made and it’s great to see new senior roles like at Admiral [chief executive designate Milena Mondini de Focatiis] and Principality Building Society [new CEO Julie Ann-Haines].

“However, in this whole idea of building back better, we really have to desperately hold on to all of the initiatives that have been put into improving the position for minorities and not losing sight of that through an economically difficult period.

“I think we have seen, certainly around gender, moving into the Black Lives Matter movement, that these are critical issues for all us, and for the young generation, the millennials, they will not tolerate anything else.

“For the newly qualified solicitors and trainees coming into our business, one of the first things they ask is, ‘What is our commitment to diversity?’.

“It’s about social mobility, age, race, gender... it’s the whole thing and if you don’t have a cohesive and clear commitment to doing something about it, you will lose out and you’ll not choose the right people. A diverse workforce is also the most productive.

“So it is about doing the right things from a societal perspective, but equally it is good business.

“I feel passionately about it and it would be dreadful to think that all future progress would have to take a step back because of this very difficult economic backdrop, so I think it is for leaders, not just female leaders, to make sure this does not slip off the list of priorities.”

But what about Eversheds Sutherland?

Ms Roberts said: “Everyone has work to do, but we have a very strong gender network and a programme very much around developing the next generation of leaders to empower them.

“The promotion process is a fair one, but where I think there is a challenge is that women don’t self-select out of the process. So they need to have an infrastructure and a culture around them that helps them through.

“A huge amount of work has been done on that, and in fairness in the wider legal profession and through business too.

“This is a focus for the CBI and something I would like to take forward with Ian and the team around making sure we have strong female representation around the council table for example.”

On a trade deal with the EU, she said: “I really hope we get a deal and the CBI has been clear that it wants a deal. I think there is a real concern on how business, when it has so much to contend with, would be able to prepare for a no-deal situation.

“It is a huge ask and for that reason alone, and there are many other reasons, I sincerely hope that one can be done.”

CBI Wales is just one of a number of business organisations in Wales, such as the IoD and FSB, each with their own distinctive memberships.

Ms Roberts said: “Having a diverse group of bodies is good as it brings different arguments and views.

“However, if we are saying to ��Ƶ and Welsh governments we want to see more collaboration for the greater good, then I think we need to stand by that ourselves.

“There is no point standing against a body for the sake of it and there has got to be a huge common goal here about rebooting Welsh business and making sure that it copes with the issues of today and is best prepared to grow and thrive in the future.

“It is about what comes afterwards and I think collaboration on that is going to be key at all levels.”