Mel Stride’s Message to Business: Growth Needs Certainty

Uncertainty was the word hanging over the room. Addressing business leaders at the British Chambers of Commerce Global Annual Conference, Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride delivered a speech framed around a simple proposition: growth depends on confidence, and confidence depends on certainty.

For many in attendance, the concern was familiar. Businesses are navigating an economic landscape shaped by geopolitical conflict, higher costs, regulatory pressures and political change. Stride acknowledged that reality from the outset, telling delegates he understood why many were worried about what comes next. “I know this will be a time where many of you will naturally be worried about the future, about uncertainty,” he said.

The speech centred on what Stride sees as the biggest threat to business confidence: speculation over future tax policy and uncertainty surrounding the direction of government economic strategy. Drawing comparisons with the debate that surrounded last year’s Budget, he warned against a repeat of what former Bank of England economist Andy Haldane famously described as a “fiscal fandango” – a period characterised by intense speculation over potential tax rises and economic measures.

For Stride, the lesson was straightforward. Businesses invest when they have confidence in the rules of the game. They hesitate when those rules appear uncertain. “If Andy Burnham does not rule out coming back for yet more tax rises on business, there is a clear risk that investment and hiring decisions are put on hold once again as the budget approaches later this year.” It was a speech aimed squarely at an audience of employers, founders and business leaders. Throughout, Stride sought to position himself not only as Shadow Chancellor but as someone with first-hand experience of building companies. “Not long after leaving university, I set up my own business,” he said.

Over the following decades, he explained, he built businesses in both Britain and the United States, describing the pressures that come with entrepreneurship: the sleepless nights, the difficult decisions and the responsibility of knowing that other people’s livelihoods depend on your choices. “I remember what that was like,” he said. “It was exciting and fulfilling, but it came with huge challenges as well.” The personal reflection gave way to a broader political argument. Stride suggested that too many policymakers underestimate the realities of running a business and fail to appreciate the cumulative impact of taxation, regulation and rising costs. “Business is where I come from. It is in my being.”

That sentiment formed the backbone of his address. While much of the conference focused on the practical question of how to deliver growth, Stride’s contribution focused on what he believes government should avoid doing if growth is to be achieved. Repeatedly, he returned to the idea that businesses have spent recent years absorbing one shock after another. The pandemic was followed by an energy crisis, geopolitical instability and trade disruption. In his view, the role of government should be to reduce uncertainty, not add to it. “There is already more than enough uncertainty in the world today, and the government should not be adding to it.”

The argument culminated in a broader defence of the private sector as the primary engine of economic expansion. “Government needs to start treating business as a solution to the problems we face, not as part of those problems.” It was one of the strongest lines of the speech and drew together many of the themes that had run through his remarks. For Stride, investment, innovation and growth are not outcomes driven by government intervention alone but by the confidence of businesses to hire, invest and expand. “Because the only way we are going to dig ourselves out of our current economic hole is through the investment, the innovation, the ingenuity and the dynamism of British business.”

The contrast he drew was between growth led by the private sector and growth driven by state intervention. Whether delegates agreed with every aspect of that analysis or not, the message was clear: certainty matters. As conversations throughout the conference continued to focus on productivity, competitiveness and investment, Stride’s contribution reflected a recurring concern among many businesses in the room – not simply the level of taxation or regulation, but the predictability of future policy. At a conference built around the theme of delivering growth, his argument was that growth begins with confidence. And confidence, in turn, begins with certainty.