Let businesses do what they do best and lead us out of the mire

As the vaccination programme accelerates, the prospect of normality lingers tantalisingly over the horizon, says David Harrison, Social Mobility Pledge cofounder; founder of the Harrison Centre for Social Mobility and chairman of True Potential.

While the restoration of many of our pre-COVID freedoms may be just months away, the economic recovery looks certain to be a long-haul battle. 

And it is businesses that will lead the way in reversing the damage done to entire sectors – and setting a new route to growth and a level playing field on opportunity. 

As a business owner and an employer, I would like to make a plea to our Chancellor. Do not make the mistake of killing or at best slowing our recovery by asking our businesses to play the wrong part. 

There are plenty of reasons to be optimistic that they can indeed guide us to better times too. For all the obvious and less obvious economic pain, lockdowns and restrictions have spurred a new wave of innovation and problem-solving among businesses and entrepreneurs. 

The London School of Economics reports that 45 per cent of businesses it polled have introduced a new product or service in the last 12 months, with 75 per cent of these stating that they had introduced entirely new products or services. 

I’ve seen first-hand how ideas on boardroom white boards have been fast tracked to the market, with great results. 

The businesses that adapted and were able to continue trading in the darkest days of COVID-19 are now poised for growth. 

Other bright-spots include a soaring investor appetite for healthcare innovation and a speeding up of digital, at-home tech’s capabilities. Then there is the prospect of a surge in demand for the many services, experiences and destinations we have been starved of in lockdown – like theatres, football matches, holidays and hairdressers.

At the same time, of course, many businesses will simply be fighting for survival in the coming months, rather than enjoying rapid growth, tentatively building back to their pre-COVID capacity. 

The priority now, therefore, must be growth and to get maximum growth further obstacles must not be put in the way. Almost always the best strategies and the best innovations are about less, not more. Removing things not adding them.  

This enables the best run, most innovative and biggest potential businesses to naturally rise to the top. It is a far more effective strategy than simply adding further subsidies or having yet more central government intervention in how businesses are run – these approaches can be misguided and fall short of their desired outcomes. 

In other times of recession, for example, we often see false actions of decentralisation like handing funds to business ‘hubs’. 

The Local Enterprise Partnerships alone have spent £7.6bn since they were formed in 2011 and claim to have created 180,000 jobs. Or to put it another way, it cost over £42,000 for each job created through the LEPs. 

Those heading up these projects may have no experience of business leadership or entrepreneurship, while the authorities they represent often have their own biases or agenda in terms of which firms benefit.    

Although well intentioned, these programmes are generally not a catalyst for new businesses with years of success ahead of them. 

Solid businesses are formed and driven by individuals eager to do something to better themselves, that they feel the market needs. If they are right then they will succeed and employ often hundreds or thousands of people.

Also, removing taxation and paperwork frees up those two most vital business resources - time and money. It allows companies to expand faster, employ more people and thus contribute to a growing economy and social mobility.

This would be an infinitely more powerful intervention than a blanket injection of cash into all businesses - many of which were failing long before COVID-19 - ultimately paid for by the same businesses.

There also needs to be a shift in the narrative around Brexit. Trade deals are being spoken about among the political class as though they alone dictate where a company can do business.  

Businesses thrive by being able to trade with other businesses and individuals, not with countries. 

To get new jobs we need to look for them across the world, using our newfound freedom, and also our ability to tax or not tax businesses that are attracted to us. I have always operated on the basis of never giving a new customer a better deal than an existing loyal one and it pays off.  

Research by the Taxpayers’ Alliance shows the average tax burden in the UK has already reached a 70 year high. 

Growing our way out of this pandemic should mean reducing, not increasing, taxes. Businesses will have more to re-invest and employees will have more money to buy goods.  

To compete in the world and to prove we can win requires a government that understands and can communicate the reasons for private, agile business as being the major force for a great country. 

This year should be a period in which businesses are given the space and freedoms to do what they do best and in doing so, they will level up Britain.

Their leadership, ideas and hardworking teams hold the key to our recovery and should be allowed to thrive with as few bureaucratic barriers as possible.