Coventry and Warwickshire Growth Hub CEO, Craig Humphrey, reflects on Labour’s first party conference since their return to power
Coventry and Warwickshire Growth Hub CEO, Craig Humphrey, and deputy CEO, Phil Peak, attended the Labour party’s annual conference in Liverpool at the end of September. In Craig’s latest blog, he reflects on the party’s first conference since their return to power after a 14-year hiatus and his thoughts on the importance of their focus on facilitating consistent, stable, business support.
Our main reason for attending the Labour party’s annual conference for the first time was to showcase our new national prospectus, written on behalf of the Growth Hub Network.
This document highlights the vital role the 41 Growth Hubs in England play in supporting growth and increasing productivity by developing locally delivered business support using our collective experience. I believe our network can help Labour succeed in their objectives to create a strong economy.
The conference was a great opportunity to meet with influential people who represent business groups within the Labour party, such as SME4Labour lobby group, which is very well connected.
I gave a copy of the Growth Hub report to their Co-Chair, Ibrahim Dogus, and we are meeting in London to continue our discussions on how Growth Hubs support growth.
With the long-term future of Growth Hubs still in the balance, we want to meet people at the highest level of Government to personally connect and highlight the crucial work we do in our regional business communities.
There have already been some positive messages from Jonathan Reynolds, Secretary of State for Business and Trade, who indicated he wants Growth Hubs to continue but it’s vital we continue to push this whenever and wherever possible.
I also had chance to chat to Rugby MP, John Slinger, to congratulate him on his success in the General Election. He was already aware of our work having met our account manager for Rugby, Adam Plumb, and our finance specialist, Jon Bass.
We have also arranged a follow-up meeting because, as a non-political organisation, it is important we are in regular contact with all our MPs in Coventry and Warwickshire so we can be one of the drivers for growth that our area needs.
We attended a host of fringe events and another person I enjoyed meeting was the actor Toby Jones, who was so brilliant in the ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office. I congratulated him on a strong piece of work which has played such a crucial role in helping post masters and mistresses over-turn the miscarriage of justice.
Phil and I also attended events hosted by Britain’s leading think tank Reform, and Centre for Cities in conversation with Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, to make the most of the broad range of events that were held.
One of the messages that came through loud and clear was the importance of Labour introducing an Industrial Strategy, which can underpin growth, and it was a topic that could be heard being discussed around the exhibition halls and within fringe events.
This strategy will be vital in securing long-term, sustainable economic growth – and our Growth Hubs need to be at the heart of that.
