Agenda item

The Committee will be joined by the Executive Director for Policy and Competitiveness at London First to hear about and discuss the key issues, opportunities and concerns of the Business Community, in light of the recent general election and wider economic climate.

The Chair invited David Lutton (Executive Director of Policy, London First) to give a presentation on the current key issues and priorities for businesses in London and how these specifically related to West London. David Lutton gave a brief introduction into the work of London First and outlined how they represented around 230 large corporations in the city. He specified that there were three major priorities for business in the current economic and political climate: access to people; housing and infrastructure; and balanced UK growth.

Firstly, he specified that access to people centred on the necessity of businesses having a continued access to talent and skills in order to help foster economic growth, and that London First had been working on promoting the principles of an open immigration system. He referenced an ongoing piece of work by The Skills Commission, which was presently collecting evidence of the types of skills that businesses felt were needed from the UK workforce. He encouraged all of the West London Boroughs to draw upon their expertise and expertise of having worked with local businesses to give evidence to the commission.

Secondly, on housing and infrastructure, he highlighted a business-led campaign called ‘Fifty Thousand Homes’ which promoted doubling housebuilding in London to at least 50,000 a year by 2020. He also referenced additional priorities such as a reform of congestion charges; the need for the completion of Crossrail 2; and the need to improve London’s digital infrastructure and connectivity to match a shift to a more digitally-orientated economy.

Thirdly, on the desire for balanced UK growth, Mr Lutton outlined that London First were presently reviewing their business plan and were thinking about London’s role within the UK’s overreaching business strategy. He outlined that the view of business was generally that a strong London economy helped to deliver economic growth for the rest of the country, and that this needed to remain a priority.  

Members thanked Mr Lutton for his presentation. Questions arose on which sectors were expected to be the most important in the near future and what West London boroughs could be doing to promote these areas. Mr Lutton said that creative and tech industries had grown rapidly and created high value jobs. However, he explained that the companies within these sectors were not necessarily ‘placed-based’ and that London was in danger of losing talent to countries abroad. He noted that there was a need for London to incentivise businesses to stay in the city, and that this was linked to improving infrastructure and solving the problems stemming from an increasingly unaffordable housing market.       

Members also raised the need for a digital inclusion strategy to be at the heart of the wider shift to a digital economy and that this should be promoted by both businesses and London boroughs. Mr Lutton agreed and mentioned that, in light of the rise of automation, the businesses which were most vulnerable were sectors that tended to include people who had been doing the same job for the duration of their life. It was felt that this was relevant to the work of The Skills Commission in developing transferable skills and therefore greater flexibility within the UK workforce.

There were additional questions on what role businesses had in solving the problems in the housing market. Mr Lutton said that there were a number of businesses which had considered purchasing housing developments to provide stable accommodation for their employees, or using employment space as additional housing space, but that there was yet to be widespread definitive action on this. Members also heard that the Greater London Authority (GLA) Culture Team were looking at developing cultural quarters in the city to attract and retain entrepreneurial tech companies.

Questions arose on transport infrastructure and what other aspects, aside from Crossrail 2, could assist in supporting West London businesses. Mr Lutton said that improving roads and easing congestion would also be key to improving transport infrastructure across London. He noted that there were interesting ideas developing on localised congestion charges in order to fund specific local projects and that PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) were completing financial modelling on this. There were also some additional discussions on the draft of the Mayor’s Transport Strategy 2017 which included proposed strategies to improve transport links in outer London.

The Chair thanked Mr Lutton for attending and outlined that London First would be welcome to present again at a future meeting of the West London Economic Prosperity Board (WLEPB).

It was RESOLVED that:

(i)         The report and presentation be noted; and

(ii)        That the areas identified in the subsequent discussion be incorporated into the WLEPB’s Forward Plan, to be returned to at a later date.