Have Your Say - Join your Chamber of Commerce

One of the areas that your Chamber team - and I personally - enjoy championing is the business voice in the national debate. We believe that private enterprise is, more often than not, a force for good. Done properly it propagates social good and personal wellbeing as well as jobs, prosperity and innovation. No other forces tell us as categorically what works or not as clearly as market forces. So British Chambers have to be very careful what we wish for and it's crucial that your individual perspective is reflected in the national lobby.
A recent example of public-driven policy which needs your input to get right is the imposition of the Apprenticeship Levy. This is a levy which came into force this year, on all businesses in UK with an annual payroll of over £3 million which the businesses have to allocate to employing apprentices if they wish to reclaim it. It was created in order to demonstrate to young people and to employers that there is a viable alternative to university education. But the mechanism of administering it is tricky for businesses which are not used to employing  apprentices. Cornwall isn't doing too badly, but across the UK, numbers of apprenticeships have halved. A disaster for this ill-thought through policy, untested with real businesses.

British Chambers use your feedback via Cornwall Chamber to inform their discussions with No. 10, Government departments and relevant MPs and EU policymakers. I gather opinions locally and feed your comments into my monthly conversation with Dr Adam Marshall, the Director General of British Chambers of Commerce, and into discussions when the Chief Executives of the 53 Accredited Chambers meet. It is a very powerful chain of influence. Adam is one of only two business advisers from outside government departments that accompany Theresa May on overseas trade missions.

In Cornwall, we won't achieve what we want on restructuring the Levy, on local plans and aspirations unless our voice matches the terminology of the Government's Industrial Strategy. This is what Chambers can draft for you in order to get future Government policy right for business. So please let us have your policy concerns so that we can campaign on your behalf kim@cornwallchamber.co.uk