York and North Yorkshire devolution is great news for small businesses - Carolyn Frank

We believe the proposed transfer of powers from Whitehall to York and North Yorkshire can inspire new strategies that promote the growth of small businesses and create the ideal conditions for companies to hire new recruits and launch successful new products and services. As the biggest employers in the private sector, small businesses want to see investment prioritised in skills and infrastructure so they can access talent and connect with opportunities to trade locally, nationally and internationally.

Devolution means that decisions are made at a local level, taking into account the interests of small businesses and communities and ensuring joined-up thinking at local and national government. Our members need the support as the clouds are gathering. This deal can help us all overcome the challenges posed by rising costs, Brexit and the war in Ukraine by making it easier to grow our businesses.

Small businesses are finding it hard to fill job vacancies. Devolution could hand over powers to improve people’s skills to meet the needs of the local economy through the core adult education budget and input into the new Local Skills Improvement Plans. As well as helping companies to grow, this means people would be able to secure higher wage, higher quality and future-proof jobs, helping to boost prosperity.

The deal would also hand over powers to improve and better integrate local transport, including the ability to introduce bus franchising, the command of local transport plans and the control of the key routes network. The resulting improvements would make it easier for people to connect with education and employment opportunities, wherever they live in the region. In turn, this would increase productivity, which has lagged for so long due to poor transport links across our rural communities.

Improved connectivity, both physical and digital, would support the continued growth and development of mainstay sectors such as farming and the environment, tourism and the visitor economy and food production. It cannot come soon enough for our rural and urban communities who have found themselves cut off from the opportunities that better-connected areas find easy to access.

Local supply chains are so important for York and North Yorkshire. Devolution offers the potential to strengthen these further. North Yorkshire County Council delivered a £215m spending boost to local businesses during the pandemic through its procurement activities. A greater concentration of decision-making powers in the region could bring freedoms to develop big new opportunities for local suppliers.

The promise of more affordable housing and regeneration as part of the deal would provide new places to live, work and raise families. The delivery of these schemes would also create significant opportunities for skilled tradespeople and subcontractors to grow their businesses and take on apprentices from local communities. The same job creation logic applies to the new infrastructure programmes that could be unlocked by the deal.

We know that York and North Yorkshire are the best places to live in Britain and in many respects are the ideal locations from which to start and grow businesses, especially in the post-pandemic world of staycations, remote working and more secure supply chains. Devolution would help our region to come together and speak with one voice, which would be especially helpful for winning national and international investment as our neighbours in Tees Valley have demonstrated so well.

Big projects like BioYorkshire, which aims to make us the UK’s first carbon negative region, and the campaign to become the home of Great British Railways would absolutely benefit from having that loud and clear voice, banging the drum for York and North Yorkshire at the top table and being the champion that we need for our small businesses.

They are the driving force in our economy, creating and safeguarding jobs through the economic cycle and providing for countless households, and I know how committed they are to our region. This deal presents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help them achieve their ambitions, from which everyone – young and old – would benefit.

I’ll leave the last word to Lee Harris-Hamer, owner of White Horse Cleaning Services Ltd and FSB volunteer area leader for North Yorkshire, who grew his business from a start-up to 45 employees with the support of funded skills training. Lee said: “Devolution brings many opportunities for York and North Yorkshire to build on our existing capabilities, and with new investment into the area from central government, there is no limit to how much we can contribute to UK plc from this region.”

Carolyn Frank is the development manager for York and North Yorkshire for the Federation of Small Businesses.