CBI Comments on Ed Miliband’s Prosperity Speech

CBI Deputy Director-General Katja Hall said:

“Addressing productivity is right. It holds the key to raising living standards and making growth work for everyone. Low productivity has been one of the main reasons for low pay growth in recent years.

“Raising skills and improving management boost productivity and enable individuals to move into higher paid work. But productivity is different in every sector and the approach to each needs to be tailored if it is to work.

“We need to learn from the industrial strategy but be clear that it won’t be right for every sector. For example, manufacturing is focussed on exports and international competitiveness in a way that retail isn’t.

“Boosting productivity is a job for business not for government but government can help us better understand the causes of low productivity. And government also needs to listen to and work with business to address barriers to improving productivity, such as the planning system holding back investment.”