Delivering the Growth Mission

The Industry Forum was delighted to welcome Labour’s National Growth Champion, Daniel Tomlinson, to lead a roundtable on ‘Delivering the Growth Mission.’ The meeting was hosted by the Railway Industry Association and introduced by their Policy Director, Robert Cook. Dan Tomlinson, an economist who has worked at the Resolution Foundation and in HM Treasury, outlined the severe structural economic problems that need to be tackled to restore growth in a stagnant UK economy. He also explained the important role of the backbench ‘mission champions:’ They will act as communications bridges on key issues to explain government plans and actions and relay back comments and suggestions. With plenty of comment and ideas from the wide range of UK and international businesses present, the discussion covered how the government and companies can work together to raise investment by the private and public sectors and address bottlenecks in the economy, particularly in transport and housing. There was also discussion of the need for the Civil Service to improve its commercial skills in areas such as procurement, project appraisal and ensuring value for money. As in all turnaround situations, a key question is where to make changes and allocate resources which will start to fuel the recovery. This will be made considerably more difficult by the urgent emerging defence needs!