A week has now passed since voters across the UK made the decision to leave the European Union.
Disappointingly - but unsurprisingly - we still have no indication from the UK Government about how it will work to secure the best possible outcome from the negotiation and transition that lie ahead.
As an apolitical organisation, we’ve observed the political fall-out from last Friday’s result, but we are focused on identifying the key business issues that members will want to see addressed in the negotiations that will come in the coming months.
We need our political leaders to start doing the same.
Support from the Chamber
The Chamber has produced a briefing, outlining these issues.
We will not get involved in the politics, instead monitoring business-specific matters in a fast-changing environment, seeking answers to the policy questions and assessing what can be done to enable our members to maximise the opportunities that a Brexit will offer.
Business as usual
While we recognise that the decision taken for the UK to leave the EU is of huge importance, it must not be allowed to sideline other priorities for business and the economy, many of which are wholly domestic in nature.
There needs to be a business as usual approach on big ticket items, with further measures to stimulate exploration and drilling activities being a key issue for the oil and gas sector and the wider North-east economy.
We cannot afford any period of parliamentary inaction and uncertainty on non-EU-related issues, and our colleagues at the British Chambers of Commerce have sought urgent reassurances from party leaders that this will not be the case.
Disappointingly though, we are already seeing examples of this with yesterday’s decision to delay further the decision on airport expansion. We believe that this is wholly unacceptable, that government is missing a golden opportunity to stimulate fragile business confidence and that their position should be reconsidered as a matter of urgency.
Business Taskforce on Europe
Both the British and Scottish Chambers of Commerce have also called for a new, broad-based Business Taskforce on Europe, to ensure that business priority issues form a key part of both domestic policy and EU exit negotiations during this critical transition.
This taskforce will also start to assess the future opportunities that will arise from the transformational change we are about to see, enabling businesses to ready themselves to meet these.
So, in short, our approach to this significant change is already beginning to take shape:
- The political fallout - we will monitor this but leave this to the politicians. It is out of our control
- Key issues business related to the EU – we will be making representations on what "good" looks like
- Business as usual – we need government to make decisions and progress on existing "big ticket" items to protest and pump-prime our current economic conditions and performance
- Opportunities – these will exist, and we are beginning to consider how we exploit these
Over the coming weeks and months, the team will provide you with updates on the latest negotiations and how you can help influence how the UK operating environment supports business once we have left the EU.
In the meantime, please contact the policy team if there are specific sector issues you would like us to highlight in our discussions.
Our briefing papers may answer some of your immediate questions.