Latest updates and stories from Bedfordshire Chamber of Commerce and its Members

We’re proud to be a proactive Chamber. Constantly sharing useful content and resources with our members and wider audiences, and developing our services to help businesses respond to evolving challenges and opportunities.

That’s the visible stuff. But behind the scenes, we’re also heavily involved in lobbying Government and national institutions to represent the interests of our region’s businesses and communities to ensure you and your peers are listened to.

From meeting with ministers face-to-face, to arranging round tables with senior economic figures (there’s more on our latest event with Bank of England Chief Economist Huw Pill below), to gathering data and feedback that gets your views heard, our dialogue with those in power is persistent, persuasive, and, above all, effective.

How does lobbying work?

‘Better together’ goes our mantra, and at Bedfordshire Chamber we’re part of the national British Chambers of Commerce (BCC). An organisation that harnesses the collective input of the regional Chambers, creating a united front that, quite literally, has the Government’s ear.

It achieves this through regular meetings not only with elected MPs but also with Government officials and senior civil servants.

In this way, our input connects both with national policy-makers and those who oversee and execute policy regionally and locally. We influence at every level.

Direct dialogue, public discussion

But these aren’t simply closed sessions. Our members attend many of them, and often the output takes the form of public debates on key issues. This helps to gain popular support that the Government then picks up on in its own opinion surveys and voter research.

Reinforcing this is the work we do to gather data and intelligence through our participation in the BCC’s Quarterly Economic Survey (QES). This is a key tool in escalating your concerns and insights to governmental level – and also securing coverage of them in the media.

The latest QES has just been released and next one’s due out mid-August, so be sure to complete it and make your views known.

What does lobbying achieve?

The lobbying we undertake isn’t just a ‘talking shop’ – it drives changes and decisions that make a real difference to our businesses and communities.

As just a few examples of this, our lobbying was instrumental in getting the Government to set up the Future Fund, which closed significant gaps in the financial support offered during Covid.

It has also driven reforms to free childcare, to employer funding for T-Level placements, and to energy cost support, as well as changes to tax policy, amongst others.

But lobbying’s also a two-way street. We may be pushing a forceful agenda, but the Government welcomes this to help shape its policies and meet public expectations of its priorities and performance.

Lobbying latest: Huw Pill, Bank of England

Earlier this month, we raised the lobbying considerably by hosting a round table event at the Chamber with Huw Pill, Chief Economist of the Bank of England.

This was a shining example of how the economic leadership of this country values the opinions and insights that our members can share with them.

Huw listened closely to the businesses in the room to understand their concerns. He noted that although inflation has come down a long way from the peak of a few years ago, there is a cash flow squeeze on businesses, as their costs are going up, but their markets often won’t bear a price increase.

The discussion then focused mainly on how these rising costs are preventing growth, and what measures might be taken to ease these pressures – a conversation the attendees certainly found useful.

In short, lobbying gets us (and you) listened to by the people who matter – and we’ll continue to ensure it adds value to the work we do for our membership, our county, and our region.

For more information on becoming a Bedfordshire Chamber of Commerce member, call our friendly team on 01582 522448, or visit www.chamber-business.com.