West Midlands Mayoral candidates vow to prioritise business growth

Candidates in the race to become the inaugural West Midlands Mayor have promised to do all they can to create the right conditions for business growth in the region.

A greater focus on developing transport and housing infrastructure, nurturing the brightest young talent and making the region a centre for innovation all featured prominently during a special debate in Birmingham hosted by TheBusinessDesk.com.

In front of an audience of more than 100 people at the city’s Rep theatre, the various candidates outlined how they would direct the region’s business agenda should they be elected to office on May 4.

Liberal Democrat Beverley Nielsen said her work with young people through her roles with WMG and Birmingham City University had given her a unique perspective from which to assess the region’s future needs.

She said there was a rich vein of talent in the region, however, the problem was hanging on to that talent. She said the brain drain following graduation had seen many of the brightest minds leaving the West Midlands and this needed to stop.

In order to do this, she said the region had to become a better place to live and work; an area that would encourage people to settle and develop their careers.

However, she said the only way to achieve this would be through investment, something which the area had been starved of for far too long, with only around £1bn finding its way to the West Midlands over the last 30 years.

She said the focus for her administration would be on securing the investment needed to nurture this talent.

She pledged bursaries for young people working with SMEs, an innovation fund which would support new ideas and projects within the region, plus a West Midlands Bank to improve sources of funding for business.

For transport, she said there needed to be a multi-modal shift, with a greater emphasis on connectivity and a focus on existing road, rail, rivers and other means of transport.

Conservative candidate Andy Street said the profile of the region had slipped in recent years with the focus on the Northern Powerhouse and this needed to change.

Years of under investment also had to be reversed so that social deprivation could end and the region could deliver on its undoubted promise.

For the first time in a long time, he said the conditions were right to achieve this, with economic momentum, local political collaboration and Government support all acting in the region’s favour.

“What we need now is the right leadership to glue these together,” he said.

While accepting there needed to be capital investment in transport, he said the construction of new homes remained the fastest means of developing the infrastructure needed to sustain the region’s future.

He said his administration would look to set up a bootcamp around digital skills and echoing his party’s stance, he said he would be developing his own mini Industrial Strategy for the region.

He said while the region was strong in the traditional automotive and aerospace sector, new sectors such as life sciences, low carbon technology, high speed rail and digital and innovation all needed equal focus.

He said that his experience both as chairman of the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership and the head of the John Lewis Partnership put his in pole position to deliver on this.

Pete Durnell, the UKIP candidate, said he was opposed to the West Midlands Combined Authority, which he said was an EU-orchestrated body deliberately created to bypass the UK Parliament.

As such, he said the body’s spending plans needed to be kept under control and his role would be to act as arbiter to ensure there was accountability. He identified traffic congestion, health issues and the need to improve the region’s town centres to make them more viable and attractive to investors as his key policy areas.

“I aim to make sure the WMCA is the best it can be,” he said.

Labour candidate Sion Simon was invited to attend the debate but declined, while James Burn, the Green Party candidate had to withdraw shortly before the event.