The Sunday Take: We all need purpose now. It’s not optional.

By Matthew McPherson, Director of Policy and Public Affairs

“We have more in common than that what divides us”

Those words, spoken by Labour MP Jo Cox in 2015 - a little over a year before her senseless murder - have resonated in British politics ever since, utilised to highlight cross-party working,  and acts of human kindness. 

Of course, you don’t get that impression if you tune into Prime Minister’s Questions at 12pm on a Wednesday, but behind the scenes, politicians who disagree in the House of Commons, agree on so much more over a cup of tea. 

In a recent episode of Justine Greening’s Fit for Purpose Podcast, Sodexo UK&I CEO Sean Haley referenced the ‘debate’ around the concept of a business being ‘Purpose-led’ when he joined Sodexo a little over a decade ago, and that now, it’s just not a choice. There is now broad consensus in the business-world that being Purpose-led is now just the default. 

And whether you call it purpose, social mobility, levelling up, equality of opportunity or something else entirely, the fundamentals are the same. There is cross-party consensus that government and business need to work in partnership together to be a force for good, that organisations need to exist to make the world a better place - alongside making a profit. 

This week I was delighted to welcome Labour’s Shadow Minister for Business and Industry, Bill Esterson MP, to a Purpose Coalition roundtable with senior representatives from leading business members of the Coalition, including Travelodge’s Chief People Officer Hannah Thompson, UK Power Networks’ Director of HR Andrew Pace, and Head of Government Relations at Pearson Education Daniel Pedley. 

Behind the scenes, Bill is meeting senior business leaders from across the country, and conveying Labour’s new pro-business policies under Sir Keir Starmer. He has an important, and tough job, given the damage done to perceptions of the party under Jeremy Corbyn. The discussion was robust, and in many ways, a cross-examination of Labour’s plans from the business community before the general election. As Bill said following the event, the roundtable was “a great example of getting to know what businesses need from a Labour government not least to deliver the purposeful business agenda.”

The reality is that when it comes to widening access to opportunity, and organisations being ‘purpose-led’, Britain as a whole needs to do better. In 2019, Boris Johnson ran on a flagship programme of Levelling Up, and whilst there is political disagreement over methods and the way to implement change, Labour’s Shadow Levelling Up Minister Alex Norris recently said that ‘the concept at the root of levelling up is right’. We now have near unanimous agreement that government and business needs to work together to drive investment and new opportunities to parts of the country that have been left behind for too long. 

The last few weeks have been hugely busy for the Purpose Coalition, alongside Bill, we’ve welcomed government and Shadow Ministers including Social Mobility Minister Mims Davies, Financial Secretary to the Treasury Victoria Atkins, Shadow Secretary of State for Health Wes Streeting and Chair of the Cross Party Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Dame Caroline Dineage for a whole host of roundtables, panel discussions and briefing sessions to discuss how business, universities and the NHS can work together to widen access to opportunity. 

Every Minister or Shadow Minister has a very different approach, but fundamentally a shared agenda - that creating opportunity for people in communities across the country needs to be at the forefront of the agenda for business and government. Rightly so. Victoria Atkins said that ‘if you don’t believe in social Mobility there isn’t much point in getting involved in politics’.

Purpose-led policy is a national mission. Government needs to set out the framework and its vision, but it can’t deliver change alone. It requires partnership with business and other organisations like local NHS Trusts, Councils and universities. 

If we work together, change can come quicker than you might think.