Mandelson drives low carbon agenda
BUSINESS secretary Lord Mandelson today urged North West businesses to embrace the low-carbon future.
Speaking at the Cumbria Economic Summit he gave an update on where the nation’s economy stands, on how the government is helping businesses weather the storm, and vowed to focus on a positive agenda from now on.
In a sideswipe to Starbucks chief Howard Shultz, who enraged him this week by claiming UK consumer confidence was lower than in most other nations, Lord Mandelson said: “There has been a lot of talking Britain down lately, and not only from coffee shop owners. I understand the severity of our economic circumstances as well as anyone. But as of today I’m going to take on the doomsters and only talk Britain up.”
He said business people needed resilience, application, commitment and patience to get through what would be a tough year.
He said many businesses were accessing the government schemes for advice or funding. In five weeks since the launch of the Enterprise Finance Guarantee for ailing small and medium-sized companies, more than 4,000 loans had been underwritten by the government, representing £1m a day.
More than £1bn remains in the fund to help troubled SMEs, he added.
Some 30,000 businesses, including 2,000 in the North West, have also accessed a free health check from Businesslink to help them assess their strategies for weathering the downturn.
Lord Mandelson’s major theme was the environment and future energy supply in what he said was a “low carbon industrial revolution”.
He said the nuclear power sector was an important part of the North West’s low carbon present and future.
“Everyone recognises that driving Cumbria’s low carbon future will take a combination of building on existing strengths and attracting new investment – probably from abroad.
“There are over 5,000 companies now operating in the low carbon and environmental sector in the North West, as a whole, employing 86,000 people. Inevitably, civil nuclear power is at the heart of the picture.”
He said the future of Sellafield – which has been chosen as a potential site for new nuclear build – is “still a moving picture” and that the government needs to ensure international investors are presented with a “coherent and compelling” regional offer.
“If you rise to the challenge of a single regional vision for a low carbon industrial future, we will back you in securing extra resources, and support any effort to leverage investment in the region.”
Lord Mandelson said focusing on the future now was the right thing to do: “In fighting back against the current economic crisis, Britain needs to reshape and rebalance our economy in the future.”
