Northern Business Demographics - Already Dominant

The ONS published today business demographics for the three years to March 2023, using PAYE and VAT data to figures out how many businesses are operating in the UK, with breakdowns by region, type of business, payrolls and sector. Guess what? The North has some of the fastest growing corporate demographics, and is now statistically the dominant commercial region of the UK.

2023’s survey finds the North encompassing the North East, North West and Yorkshire already Britain’s leading commercial region, surpassing London for the first time in recent years. In 2023, the North West was home to 9.8% of the UK’s companies, Yorkshire had 7.1% and North East 2.7%. Combined the North, then has 19.6% of the UK’s companies. This proportion is up from 19.3% in 2021, telling us that the North is now leading in commercial adventure.

Some comparisons are worth making. London’s share has slipped to 19.3% in 2023, down from 19.4% in 2022. As for Scotland, despite or perhaps because of their fiscal pampering, their companies represent only 6.3% of the UK’s companies.

There are clear differences in the sort of business structures in the North East compared with North West and Yorkshire. In short, North East is home to bigger proportion of large companies, with those employing more than 100 people accounting for 19.5% of North East’s corporate population, compared with 9.8% in the North West and only 7.1% in Yorkshire. Conversely, the North East has the smallest proportion of micro-companies, at 73.8% of the total, compared with 76.3% in North West and 75.4% in Yorkshire.

I take two things from this. First, the North does not understand or appreciate its underlying commercial vitality or opportunity. More companies than London, more than the South East, more than the Midlands (14.7% of UK’s total), and, of course, incomparably more than Scotland. It needs to embrace and celebrate this as a sign of its determination, imagination and commercial acumen. Second, clearly there’s a different and more capital-intensive model working in the North East which maybe the North West and Yorkshire need to join and emulate.

The North - Fewer Crimes, Mostly

The Grit really wants to concentrate on economics, but if the latest data is telling us about crimes against property, then that’s where we’ll have to start. Last week the ONS published breakdowns of property crimes, including detailed breakdowns by region. I don’t know of any work which measures how the frequency of crime affects overall financial and economic security, but it surely must. So how active are the North’s crooks, relatively speaking?

My Scouser friends (and I do have some) will be surprised to hear that the North West’s burglars and tealeafs are rather work-shy, compared to the rest of the UK. The ONS checks seven categories of property crime, and it turns out that if you live in the North West, you have a lower-than-national average chance of domestic burglary, other break-in, having your car and/or bike stolen, of being the victim personal theft. But you are slightly more likely to be robbed, apparently

There’s a similar laissez-faire attitude among the North East’s criminal classes, scoring lower that average frequencies of h’hold theft, personal theft, robbery, or car and bike theft. The fog on the Tyne apparently does not encourage these sorts of crime.

Sadly, the situation is not so good in Yorkshire, where you’ve a slightly higher than average chance of being the victim of domestic burglary or other h’hold theft, and of having your bike nicked. On the other hand, you are very unlikely to be directly robbed or be the victim of personal theft.

Overall, the North East and North West are tied as low-crime areas, but Yorkshire comes out very slightly higher than the national average.

But Yorkshiremen can comfort themselves with the knowledge that they are a remarkably law-abiding lot compared to the den of criminals infesting London. If you live in London you have more than double the national average chance of having your car nicked, your bike nicked, someone nicking stuff from you, or simply robbing you. Maybe ‘London weighting’ is partly there to compensate for the sharply reduced chances of actually keeping the stuff you buy for long.

Welcome to The Grit

It is said that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert in something. Fortunately, economics observation is not as demanding as becoming an expert violinist or footballer. But it remains true that if you want to understand an economy, a good place to start is by immersing yourself in the data, day in, day out, until you can get a ‘feel’ for how things work, and how things are breaking.

One of my interests is in the economy of North England. I was born there, and escaped for wider, bluer futures in Asia as soon as I could. Now I look back and see decades of national British policy neglect and worse, and consequently embrace a vision of NorthernFuturism which can imagine and work towards a future for the North which is radically different both to its present, and to the models currently offered for emulation in the rest of Britain.

NorthernFuturism is initially an attempt to imagine an alternative future for the North, and eventually to work towards bringing that future to life. It is self-consciously visionary, and consequently self-consciously slightly daffy, slightly idiotic. I do not expect the normal visitors to Coldwater Economics to embrace it, or even respect it much.

Nevertheless, one has to start somewhere, and The Grit is where I’m starting. Its ambitions are tightly limited to providing ongoing uncomplicated but consistent economic observation of the North, comprising in UK regional terms, the North East, the North West and Yorkshire. There is more detailed data-coverage of these regions than is ever presented in national coverage, or is acknowledged in the UK’s London-based media. The hope is that by consistently engaging with that data, both I and any readers who choose to follow The Grit can begin to grasp just what the economy of the North actually is - it’s challenges and its triumphs.

Only when we can grasp The North as a legitimate and comprehensible economy in its own right can we genuinely start to think about how to bring NorthernFuturism to life.

For the time being, do not expect revelations or dramatic economic commentary from The Grit. For now, writing it, reading it, is simply about developing the knowledge-base and the expertise that we’ll need if we are to help transform this economy, or these economies.