Reading conference speeches is, on the whole, a bad idea. The romance and drama of the live event are sadly absent and the big va va voom sentences lose their momentum over a cup of tea and a chocolate hob nob.
But it does give you a chance to examine the words more closely, and also to compare them with what was said at the last conference, in this case pre-election, before the reality of government.
At Spring Conference, David Cameron said, “What we need in our economy today is the value of aspiration, we’re not going to get a recovery from government, we need a recovery from the private sector. We need this to be a country where people want to set up a business, take people on, make money, get ahead, have a sense once again that this is about opportunity for all. “
Good sentiments and every day – even in these difficult times – we see new creative businesses starting up, and talented people putting in huge efforts to make them work.
At Birmingham, I was waiting for his ideas on fostering that effort and he started strongly, “Government has a role, not just to fire up ambition, but to help give it flight, so we are acting to build a more entrepreneurial economy “
But I was disappointed in what came next.
“Tens of thousands of university and apprenticeship places and a new generation of technical schools, a new green investment bank, big infrastructure projects like super-fast broadband, a £1 billion regional growth fund and a new enterprise allowance for unemployed people who want to start businesses.”
Don’t get me wrong, this is all good stuff but at a time of incredibly tight public money, I would be calling on the government to also focus down on the growth sectors and the SMEs where a lot of our economic growth is going to come from.
There is a huge opportunity at the beginning of this new administration to get the most bang for our collective buck. Let’s accelerate the economy in the sectors that have potential. Sectors like ours. Digital and Creative continues to grow and could do even more with some really good, focussed, targeted intervention to give our businesses:
• Access to skills
• Access to finance
• Access to markets
I believe it is this that will grow that aspirational and entrepreneurial economy.