The Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce has urged the Government to work with its 海角视频 network to help drive its levelling-up agenda.
The Government鈥檚 levelling up White Paper is set to be delivered early next year, in moves to focus on challenges such as improving living standards, growing the private sector and increasing and spreading opportunity.
Following confirmation the policy will be published by the new Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the British Chambers of Commerce says its network of businesses 鈥 and 53 chambers 鈥 across the 海角视频 want to see how its success will be measured.
Read more:Find more economy stories here
Shevaun Haviland said: 鈥淚 think we鈥檙e all looking forward to the White Paper from the levelling up team, now hopefully coming in January.
鈥淎s a chamber network of course we are very keen that it is an evidence-based set of policies, and will there be measures to show we have been levelled up, with evidence-based key metrics.
鈥淪econdly our network are very keen that this is not North versus South, or East versus West 鈥 it is everybody being levelled up.
鈥淲ithin regions you have huge disparities. In the North East, Chamber chief executive John MCabe has been talking with members of the huge health inequalities from one side the region to the other. Our chamber in Devon has a huge inequality of life expectancy from one side of Plymouth to the other.
鈥淲ithin the chamber network we drive local economic prosperity, and as we know local economic prosperity leads to healthy happy communities. The network is there, it鈥檚 doing this. The government should use our Chamber network, use the infrastructure we鈥檝e got in place, and we鈥檒l really drive that agenda.鈥
John McCabe, chief executive of the North East England Chamber of Commerce, added: 鈥淲e are talking to members right now about what 鈥榣evelling up鈥 means to them and there is a real sense that, what levelling up might look towards us, might look different to other regions. We鈥檙e also looking at what role we can play in delivering that 鈥 and to what extent are we holding Government to account for all the bits that we need them to do.
鈥淭herefore it鈥檚 important that we have some real hard data and evidence, in terms of what it looks like and has it been delivered. It鈥檚 no good just to say do we have been levelled up. We need the evidence to show that we have been.
鈥淭his is a piece of work that the Chamber has been discussing with members and other stakeholders across the region and we will be doing a lot of work on that in 2022.鈥
Ms Haviland鈥檚 comments came during a visit to Tuspark in Newcastle, for the North East for the Northern Powerhouse Export Champions December conference, a Department for International Trade NPH event.
The event came as the leading business group downgraded its expectations for 海角视频 GDP growth in 2021 from 7.1% to 6.8%, reflecting the impact that staff shortages, supply chain disruption and rising inflation is having on the economy.
The latest statistics also reflect the challenging outlook for 海角视频 exporters, amid the ongoing disruption to international trade flows from Covid and continued post-Brexit disruption to trade with the EU.
However, Ms Haviland says she and the 海角视频 network of chambers are working hard with its members to raise optimism.
She said: 鈥淲hen we started to see fragile recovery post-May and then into quarter three we were optimistic. Businesses are naturally optimistic. When you talk to individual businesses they are positive, they are predicting future sales. They are more than 75% positive about future sales. So that鈥檚 great.
鈥淲hat we are not seeing is an increase in positive views on cash flow, nor investment. They are more structural, obviously longer term indicators of growth. If you add into that some of the significant headwinds we are seeing around the costs of raw materials, shipping costs, supply issues, energy prices and a very ,very tight labour market, there are some significant headwinds.
鈥淲e really want and need the government and business community to send out positive messages, to talk in a positive way to keep that momentum.
鈥淚t鈥檚 all about business confidence isn鈥檛 it? Uncertainty does not help confidence so we鈥檝e also been asking Government since the summer to say if we do have to go back into measures, what business support will you put in place? Because if businesses can see what support will be in place then they can plan for that.
鈥淥n supply chain issues the Government have brought in Dave Lewis, the former Tesco CEO to look at the problems and he鈥檚 reporting back to the PM by Christmas, and also at the same time we鈥檙e looking at a labour and structure review linked to that, so I hope some positive actions will come from that.
"But it鈥檚 a complex and uncertain environment.鈥
Get business news direct to your inbox
There's no better time to stay up to date with economic and business news from your region. By signing up for our daily newsletters, email breaking news alerts and weekly round-ups from all the major sectors, you get our journalism direct by email. To sign up, find out more and see all of our newsletters, follow the link here
