Before I start, I would just like to thank the Chair of the RDA Board, Juliet Williams, for her tireless work in the region for the last 6 years. Particular highlights have been her work with the Department of Media Culture and Sport to improve tourism; her spearheading of the Partners for England campaign and her leadership of the Regional Skills Partnership.

I understand that Juliet has now been asked to stay on as Chair until December next year. And I’m delighted that she has accepted.

I would like to pay particular tribute to the members of the RDA Board whose term of office will shortly come to an end. Eric Thomas, Jonathon Porritt, Nigel Costley, Harry Studholme and Judith Reynolds have helped to lead the RDA through some difficult times and they leave it far stronger than when they arrived. Thank you all.

The Economic Storm

Before this conference was re-titled ‘Shooting the Rapids’ it was called ‘The South West: A Confident and Productive Region.’ Truth be known, we’re all a little less confident than we were this time last year.

In the South West, we’re used to being buffeted by storms. But it’s usually a Force 9 from the Bay of Biscay, not a Sub-Prime hurricane from the mid-west United States.

The scale and ferocity of the financial crisis has surprised even the most wizened and jaded of commentators. We have seen the end of some of the worlds most respected financial institutions. Hungary, Ukraine and South Korea have all gone cap-in-hand to the IMF. And the crisis is now leading much of the world into recession.

It is forcing people, companies and governments around the world to look again and reassess their assumptions about the world. People are worried. About keeping their jobs, about paying their bills, about keeping their businesses afloat. It is at times like these that people look to their government for support and leadership.

Government Response

These extraordinary times call for bold and far reaching solutions.

The whole of the government is absolutely committed to doing every thing in our power to get the country back on track.

We need to act simultaneously on a global, national and regional level if we are going to get through this.

In recent weeks, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have been working with other world leaders, Finance Ministers, the G7 and the IMF to do whatever is necessary to reduce uncertainty and improve confidence in financial markets.

At a national level, we changed our competition law to allow the merger of Lloyds TSB and HBOS. We have increased the compensation limit for bank deposits from 35 to £50,000, protecting 98% of accounts. We have directly invested £37 billion in our banks, and extended the Special Liquidity Scheme from £100 billion to £200 billion.

And we’re helping businesses with their cash flow. With late payment problems intensifying, the government now aims to make all payments to SMEs not within 30 days, but within 10.
And since the beginning of October, the Bank of England has cut interest rates by an unprecedented 2%.

But we also need to act as a region to reduce the impact of the downturn and ensure we are well placed to make the most of the upturn when it comes.

Last month’s government reshuffle saw the return of Peter Mandelson, but it also established the National Economic Council and a Regional Economic Council for every region of England.
Ours will ensure that the particular experience of the South West influences and shapes national policy to help households and businesses get through this.

Regional Development Agencies

The Regional Development Agencies will be crucial. Led by business, working in partnership with local authorities, universities and others, they are the key economic co-ordination body in each region.
RDAs support business and industry and play a strategic role in the future direction of our regions. Like the best flood defences, they fight to protect the regions from the full force of the economic storm.

The South West RDA has three objectives. To drive productivity-led growth, to prepare the region for a low-carbon economy and investing to help create successful places.

Immediate Help

These objectives remain unchanged. But it has also moved quickly to improve the immediate support it gives. Jane Henderson announced a range of practical measures taken by the RDA this morning as part of its Prospectus for Economic Recovery.

The RDA is working with the Learning and Skills Council, Job Centre Plus, Business Link and the Government Office to help companies avoid making redundancies and to help those at risk of redundancy to improve their skills and find a new job elsewhere.
The Manufacturing Advisory Service, which you have heard about already from Stephen Peacock [Executive Director of Enterprise and Innovation, RDA], has launched a Downturn Readiness Review, helping companies to review their finances and boost their productivity to improve cash flow.

Business Link, with the BBC, has held a series of Credit Crunch Clinics on how it can help you weather the storm.

The South West RDA is working with UK Trade and Investment to help businesses boost their exports.

Longer-term help

Whilst we need to act decisively to help people now, we cannot neglect the medium and long term.

The economy in the South West has many strengths, and over the last 10 years we have grown faster than the English average.

The Skills for Life programme is helping over 40,000 people a year in the South West to earn their first ever literacy or numeracy qualification.

Since this time last year, over 9,000 school leavers have begun their careers through an apprenticeship. I saw this for myself when I visited South Devon College in Paignton. Their new £28 million Vantage Point campus has enabled them help around 600 new apprentices.
The billion pound Train to Gain service has radically changed skills training so that it provides what the market wants. What you want. Not what some Whitehall planner thinks you should have.

RDA Projects

The South West RDA has a crucial role to play in keeping the South West strong through improved infrastructure, training and research. Let us take a few examples.

In the next few years, the world’s largest wave energy farm will open, just off the coast of Hayle. With over £20 million of RDA funds invested in it, the Wave Hub will produce electricity for up to 7,500 homes.

It will also provide a fully functioning test bed to encourage innovation and development, placing the South West of England at the centre of a new world of renewable energy. This represents a significant step towards the target for all of the South West RDA’s investments to be net carbon neutral by 2013.

The RDA established Marine South West almost a decade ago to tackle the marine industry’s biggest barrier to growth, a lack of the right skills. For example, since it opened in 2004, the Poole Marine Training Centre has helped almost 13,000 people, many from small businesses, to improve their skills.
And after literally decades of talk, it took the intervention of the RDA to get SPark, the Bristol and Bath Science Park, off the ground. Working closely with the universities of Bath, Bristol and the West of England, it will create around 6,000 highly skilled jobs in aerospace, defence, digital technology and biotechnology.

Beyond the Storm

If Britain is to continue to thrive after the crisis has passed, we need to do three things.

First, we need to maximise our strengths in areas central to the future of the global economy. The creative industries, the research-intensive, high value-added manufacturing and service industries, where the application and exploitation of knowledge are key to the creation of wealth.

Second, we must move to a low carbon economy. This will tackle climate change and safeguard our energy security. It also represents a massive economic opportunity for the South West, and the rest of the country.

Finally, we need growth to be more balanced across the UK. This means having a strong regional dimension to our economic policy, with the Regional Development Agencies playing a leading role.

Conclusion

So maybe we’re not feeling as confident as we were last year. We’re in for some tough times and we have to get through those. But there is an awful lot of support out there for you to draw on. Support that will help you improve your business and make it through.

And here in the South West we have good reason to be very confident about the future. Confident about a future based on our highly skilled, highly productive industries.

Confident about the new investment and the new jobs that will come as we move to a low-carbon economy.

And confident that the Regional Development Agency will be there throughout. Getting us through the bad times and helping us to make the most of the good.

Thank you.