SME4Labour at Labour Party Conference

Monday 28 September 2026 · ACC Liverpool

Industrial strategy must cut input costs and open up finance for small businesses

Speakers at a full-house SME4Labour and Allica Bank panel said the strategy will be judged on whether it lowers the cost of doing business and widens access to finance beyond London.

The government's industrial strategy will be judged on whether it lowers the cost of doing business and widens access to finance beyond London, speakers told a packed fringe at Labour's conference.

The session, The New Industrial Strategy: How Do We Deliver Growth for the Real Economy?, was held by SME4Labour and Allica Bank on Monday 28 September. It was chaired by Alison Taylor MP, Labour MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire North and a chartered surveyor by background. She opened by stressing that businesses need a stable economy to plan, and that keeping interest rates low is central to that.

The panel brought together:

• Conrad Ford, Chief Product & Strategy Officer at Allica Bank
• Perran Moon MP, Labour MP for Camborne, Redruth and Hayle
• Sonia Kumar MP, Labour MP for Dudley
• Mark McVitie, former Director of the Labour Growth Group

Cornwall's critical minerals push

Moon said his constituency lost its tin mining industry decades ago, and that the government is now backing efforts to reopen mines. Cornwall could become an industrial powerhouse in the coming decades, he said, with private investment in mining and critical minerals essential. The area also needs practical trades such as builders and welders. Most young people locally, he said, go into technical and further education rather than university. Success in five years would be a significant uplift in the critical minerals strategy, with supply chains secured so that they do not fall into foreign hands.

Access to finance

Kumar said small businesses are central to community cohesion, high streets and the wider economy. She has brought forward a private member's bill on women's access to capital, and argued that Britain under-invests in women and minorities. She cited the Rose Review's estimate of the economic value this leaves untapped. The core problem, she said, is a lack of transparency about where investment goes.

Ford said the government's ambition of growth in every postcode runs into a problem: scale-ups tend to move to cities or abroad as they grow. Large, established small businesses are the core of a local economy, he argued. London has been the only part of Great Britain where their numbers have risen in the last three years. Funding is a bigger issue for small businesses than anything except input costs, he said, citing a funding gap of £65 billion since the financial crisis.

The panel then discussed the US model, where regulation requires lenders to show who they lend to. Kumar called it an excellent model but said expanding the British Business Bank should be the main focus. Ford said he would support a legal requirement on lending disclosure, but that an expanded British Business Bank is key.

Input costs and incumbents

McVitie said the central message of the Labour Growth Group's *An Honest Day* report is that the best industrial strategy is one that lowers the cost of business inputs. Energy, land, capital and technology matter most, he said, and each carries a cost premium built up over 15 years of government policy. Incumbents can absorb those costs but challengers cannot, so high costs entrench established firms. Ahead of the Budget, he suggested the government use the leverage created by speculation about a bank surcharge.

What success looks like

Asked what successful delivery would mean for the real economy, Kumar listed access to finance, energy costs, skills and niche sector issues. She said young people not in education, employment or training should be a core priority, along with getting growth out of London. Audience questions covered whether advanced manufacturing is the right focus over traditional manufacturing, the role of the National Wealth Fund, and energy prices.

For small firms, the next test will be the Budget, and whether it shifts the input costs and finance gaps the panel set out.