The past few weeks have seen boosts to the Labour approach to business from two unlikely sources. First, the Economist praised Labour councils for leading the way in innovating and designing new ways to help their residents and businesses. Then the Heseltine report took as its starting point the premise that growth will not return if local and national government simply step out of the way and do nothing.
This is exactly what small- and medium-sized business-owners told us when we hosted a business networking event with Chuka Umunna last month, they want to be allowed to get on – but that isn’t the same as government and councils just ‘getting out of the way’. They want help, and they want us to provide it. They are happy for us to be activist in seeking local growth, but they don’t want us to be interventionist.
This is the approach that Labour councils like Waltham Forest are taking on the ground. It is the exact opposite of the Tory idea that all the economy needs is for the public sector to shrivel, because that means that the private sector will inevitably grow. That may be what the Tories’ friends in the City tell them, but it is certainly not what small businessmen up and down the country are telling us.
We know that communities and the country cannot thrive if only some groups are doing well. We all thrive or none of us thrive – that’s what One Nation means. The various communities of a place like Waltham Forest will not succeed if Waltham Forest businesses are not succeeding. That needs engaged local and national government. The owners of the Princess Boutique on Leyton High Road understand that – when the council redeveloped their shop front and others on the high road, their customers increased. The owners of the food import business on Lea Bridge Road understand that – an active council is central to their plans to expand and to take on more staff. But that is not what the Tories offer. Where we offer sensible assistance, they do not believe that councils and government should step in to help. They are wrong.
Ed Miliband’s conference speech summed up our approach. We want our small- and medium-sized businesses to be central to our plans for growth. When they succeed, we all do. That’s why he talked about opening up public procurement to local businesses, and making sure that contractors offer apprenticeships to local people. This is exactly what is happening in Waltham Forest, where a Labour council shows what a Labour government would do. We have increased our own apprentices nine-fold and are looking to support hundreds in the private sector through procurement and planning decisions. This isn’t about tying businesses down with the dreaded red tape. It is about simple changes that benefit businesses, and benefit residents. It is One Nation Labour in action.
The businessmen and women we met in Leyton were a genuine cross-section of the community – young and old; men and women; black, white and Asian. Every one of them showed enormous bravery in running their own businesses. They want their local council to listen to them and to help, just as they want their government to provide a skilled workforce and to get the banks lending. This government is not doing that. We know that Labour would do better, because Labour councils like Waltham Forest are already doing better.
They understand that business doesn’t end at the City’s border. Nearly every second person employed in the private sector works in a small business – there are over 800,000 in London alone. They understand that healthy businesses make healthy communities. And they understand the difference between active government and interventionist government. All of this is at odds with the thin Tory philosophy of sink or swim. The cuts might be too far and too fast, but Labour councils are not using them as an excuse – they are getting on with their jobs, doing it for themselves.
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Mark Rusling is a Labour and Cooperative councillor in the London borough of Waltham Forest and writes the Changing to Survive column
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