Queen's Speech 2015: New Laws Must Translate into Growth

The government has announced its legislative agenda for the year ahead, in the Queen's Speech.

Giving his reaction, Phil Smith, Managing Director of the Business West, said:

"Businesses across the South West watched with keen eyes as the new legislative programme for the year ahead was announced today, including a new fresh batch of laws to incentivise growth. But for many firms it was bittersweet, as positive measures such as reducing red tape and more devolved powers locally will be counter balanced by the uncertainty that an EU referendum will bring.

“Our economy lies at a crossroads and the message from business is that it’s vital for these new laws to translate into growth on the ground, with increased employment and investment.”

ON AN EU REFERENDUM

“There is no doubt that the proposed referendum will cause uncertainty, not only over the result itself but also what we are voting for. The Scottish example last year showed that referendums have the ability to intensify UK political risk and heighten investor nervousness. The government has stressed that there will be a renegotiation of terms ahead of the referendum but there are many unanswered questions as to what these terms will be.

“Our earlier research has found that the majority of businesses favour EU membership, with 77% of businesses telling us that they wanted to stay in a reformed EU. Now a referendum is a certainty we will be surveying the business community again, asking what impact the EU has on their trade, how they plan to vote and what risk is posed to their business if we were to leave the EU.”

ON AN ENTERPRISE BILL

“It is great to see the Government start the Parliament with a real drive to support businesses. Measures to cut red tape for business by at least £10bn in the five years of this Parliament could make a real difference – saving both time and money.

“However businesses have been let down by successive governments promising to make inroads, so we will be watching carefully to make sure these proposals are delivered.  To further free companies up from red tape and focus on growth, businesses will now expect to see a similar commitment from Brussels.”

ON DEVOLUTION

“The government has committed to ambitious legislation to devolve greater powers to English cities. This offers a once in a lifetime chance for our region to seize control of its economic future.

“But at present Bristol and the West of England appear to be far behind other English cities in their readiness to exploit this opportunity. This could make it harder for our region to get attention from national government and gain access to limited future growth and investment funding.

“Local leaders must ensure we are not left behind and co-operate together to set out ambitious plans to use devolved powers to deliver further economic growth and the long term investment we need.”

ON EXTENDING RIGHT TO BUY

“One of the major challenges for the government this parliament will be to substantially increase the number of houses being built. We are concerned that the unintended consequences of extending Right to Buy could be to make it harder for housing associations to borrow and invest, negatively impacting on our region’s ability  to build the new homes we need.”