Tech entrepreneur Martha Lane-Fox has told an audience of businesses in the North East to draw on the resilience they have shown over the recent period of political turmoil to make a difference in society.
Speaking at a meeting of the North East England Chamber of Commerce - and in her role as president of the British Chambers of Commerce - Baroness Lane-Fox said the turmoil of recent years had led to a “collective holding of breath” in which businesses are holding back investment decisions, to the detriment of the economy.
The co-founder of lastminute.com and one-time Government digital champion called on the businesses at the event to embrace digitisation and other forms of technology that could make companies more productive. But she also highlighted the need for business leaders to do more to broaden diversity in their operations, and to become more sustainable at a time of environmental challenges and people living ever longer lives.
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She said: “I do think that we underestimate what we can do as a country. I meet so many incredible, resilient business, despite the challenges that we’re facing with political uncertainty, inflationary uncertainty, huge challenges. I don’t underestimate the complexity that we’re operating under.
“But what I definitely cannot overestimate is the extraordinary talent I see in businesses and the leadership in them. That’s why the BCC and the members of its network are so important because we want the voice of business to be heard in this country in places where they make decisions. Sometimes that voice isn’t heard and we get the chaos that we had last year, or political parties that aren’t so open to business.
“But over the next decade, businesses are going to have an even more important role to play in policy making and sorting out some of the things that we’re facing. And I’m optimistic about it because of some of the people I’ve met on my travels and the sense of shared purpose that we have at the BCC.”
Along with British Chambers of Commerce director-general Shevaun Haviland, Baroness Lane-Fox earlier this month launched a Business Council that aimed to “design and drive the future of the British economy”. But she denied the new body was an attempt to take advantage of the recent crisis at rival business group CBI, and said it was important to provide continuity for businesses in having a voice with the Government.
She said that the economy was “quite the perilous state” and there was “more uncertainty than we’d like”, but that business leaders often showed great resilience and were looking for the Government to provide the conditions where investment would return.
