Andy Street is Co-Chair of Prosper UK, served as the first Mayor of the West Midlands, and was formerly Managing Director of John Lewis.
The new tax year brought with it a fresh wave of costs for business, from higher wage bills and changes to business rates to higher employer National Insurance contributions. Whatever ministers say, that is not the start of a more pro-growth climate. It is a further squeeze on the real economy.
What has been missing from the debate for too long is a confident and openly pro-enterprise voice, one willing to say plainly that growth will not come from slogans or from placing extra burdens on the very businesses expected to create jobs, invest and expand.
A large part of the reason Prosper UK was set up was to be that voice. Labour says growth is its central mission, but too often it governs as though growth can be delivered through empty rhetoric while continually making it harder to do business.
There are two prevailing assumptions in politics that Prosper UK exists to challenge. The first is that policy can be developed in isolation by groups and individuals without real experience of what it means to run a business. The second is that the thinking needed to deliver growth and get the country moving again can be developed in Westminster alone.
Both are wrong. And both help explain why Prosper UK is determined to do things differently.
To challenge the first assumption, we have established our Business Advisory Group. The purpose is simple. If we want credible centre-right policy, it should be informed by people who have built businesses, led major organisations, shaped economic thinking, created jobs and taken difficult decisions in competitive markets. That will enable us to ground policy in practical experience and make sure it reflects how growth actually happens, drawing on people with a proven track record of delivery.
Engagement with business is therefore central to how we develop policy. That work is already under way. We have launched a Housing Commission, led by Gavin Barwell, to examine one of the biggest barriers to opportunity across the UK
Second, it means taking the conversation outside Westminster, listening to businesses and voters across the UK, not just to their concerns but, more importantly, to their ideas about how to improve things. Now is the time for bold new thinking. Since our launch in January, we have already been in Cardiff, Birmingham and London. Next month we will be in Edinburgh. We will continue travelling the length and breadth of the country.
What we are hearing has been strikingly consistent. Businesses want to invest. They want to grow. They want to hire. But too often the conditions are not there. They see a tax burden that is already high, weak growth, low confidence and too little sense that government understands the pressures they are under.
You can see the importance of that in sectors such as hospitality. At our recent roundtable, businesses were clear about the pressures now bearing down on them. For many, the April changes are a direct hit to margins and confidence. Some expect to cut jobs. Some are delaying investment. Some are reducing trading hours. Some are worried about whether they can continue as they are.
Hospitality is a good barometer for the wider economy. It is labour-intensive, present in every town and city, central to local high streets, and highly exposed to changes in employment costs and business rates. If the economics stop working there, that should concern anyone serious about growth.
Those discussions are helping to shape an ambitious policy programme. Prosper UK is not interested in abstract positioning or empty commentary. We want to develop serious, practical proposals rooted in what people are actually experiencing and what will help restore confidence and growth.
That matters not only economically but politically too. One reason Prosper UK was created is that so many people feel politics is no longer speaking to their lives as they actually experience them. Research by More in Common for Prosper UK found that around 7 million centre and centre-right voters feel politically homeless. We were set up not only to make the case for a bold pro-business, pro-growth centre right, but to speak for those voters too. Too many people look at the current choices on offer and do not feel properly represented at all.
The research was equally clear about what those voters want. They are not looking for ideological theatre or louder rhetoric, but for serious politics, with enterprise encouraged, investment supported, institutions trusted and politicians honest about the trade-offs involved in making progress. Above all, they want a country in which hard work is rewarded, opportunity is wider, and younger generations can once again believe they will build a better life than their parents did.
That is the kind of centre-right politics we need. We believe the Conservative Party can deliver it, but only at its best, when it is a broad church, in touch with the country and focused on the practical concerns of ordinary voters. The route back to government is not through more noise, more grievance or a narrower politics. It is through growth, competence and a proper understanding of what makes an economy work.
That is what Prosper UK is now focused on.
We are developing sound, evidence-based proposals that are unashamedly pro-business and aimed at helping to restore growth as the precondition for higher living standards, stronger public services and wider opportunity. We want to help rebuild a centre right that is capable not just of making arguments, but of winning support and governing effectively.
We will be setting out our thinking to ConservativeHome readers on the key issues facing the UK and the practical steps needed to get the country moving again.