Queen’s Speech

Baroness Valentine Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Valentine (CB)]

I begin by adding my welcome to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford. I also declare that I am director of place and levelling up at Business in the Community, as well as chair of Heathrow Southern Railway. Also, for many years I ran London First and sat on the board of Crossrail.

Today, I will focus on the importance of government enabling business to play its part in contributing to economic development and social mobility. Every sector has its skill sets: national government on big-picture policy; local government on the gritty realities of dealing with deprivation; the third sector on supporting those for whom life is particularly challenging; and business on market insights, leading change and releasing potential. The win-win is when every sector participates and plays to its own strengths.

I have been involved in encouraging businesses to tackle civic challenges for decades and indeed learned much from the late Lord Sheppard of Didgemere. That has included business support for the Olympics, Teach First and Crossrail. I am delighted that Crossrail will open shortly and am sure that, once people ride on it, they will realise what a massive impact it has, adding 10% capacity to central London rail journeys. Lest anyone forget, London business is contributing billions to the cost through a special annual supplementary business rate, which London First helped to facilitate.

Once Crossrail is open, perhaps the Department for Transport will turn its attention to rail access to Heathrow from the south, thereby reducing illegal air pollution levels on the M25. This was launched as something called a “pathfinder project” in 2018. If I were being unkind, rather than a “pathfinder” I might call this a “meandering promenade across a boulder-strewn track”. I appreciate that this is not the time to spend public money in the south-east, but Heathrow Southern Railway, which I chair, has been ready to implement a privately funded solution for over five years. Can the Minister reassure me that concrete next steps from the market engagement exercise undertaken four years ago will be announced at the same time as the rail network’s enhancement pipeline? This is not special pleading for either Heathrow Southern Railway or the south-east; it is simply encouraging the Government to act as the enabler they say they want to be.

I will focus particularly on the importance of business involvement in levelling up. Earlier this year, the Government announced their 12 levelling-up missions. These are a helpful articulation of where we need to get to by 2030. They include upskilling, rising employment and productivity—all natural territory for business. Perhaps less obviously, I believe business also has a key role in pride of place and local leadership, and in making the levelling-up aspirations a reality. Levelling up cannot be done to a place; there needs to be ambition that is of the place and owned by local champions, from the public, voluntary and private sectors, working together in a local collaboration.

Yesterday, I was in Bradford meeting the City of Culture expert panel. The Bradford 2025 bid has done an inspiring job of aligning thousands of people behind a single vision. Local business leaders, if engaged effectively, can help in clarifying realistic goals for a place, rather than a wish list dictated by a bewildering range of potential public or charitable funding sources. They can then use business disciplines to lead what is, in effect, a change management process, involving hitting milestones towards goals and deploying local resource as appropriate.

I worked in Blackpool for two years and am delighted that the town is working according to these principles and has recently been chosen as an exemplar of levelling up. The best of the town deals, launched by the Government a year or two ago, are performing in this way, but the Civil Service is short on people who instinctively work with business to deliver civic outcomes. The problem with defaulting to a public sector conversation is that there is often a tired narrative of the local authority pleading for funding from whatever central pot it can make its needs sort of fit, versus central government trying to keep funding to a minimum. The conversation needs to shift to a positive future for a place, supported by long-term funding aligned with the levelling-up missions.

This morning, Business in the Community launched its taskforce report on best practice for business involvement in place-based regeneration. Lessons include the benefit of “a local cross-sector partnership” with a shared vision, a champion independent of the council to help lead change and a local connector who works between public, private and voluntary sectors with no allegiance to any one sector in order to build trust.

Finally, as a piece of advice, I urge the Minister when bringing forward levelling-up legislation to include a clause obliging the formation of local levelling-up partnerships to make real the 12 levelling-up missions. Indeed, I will even offer to help draft the clause. With the winds of change swirling around us and the cost of living crisis upon us, levelling up is a challenge we collectively need to meet.