I want to congratulate the BHBPA on their initiative in bringing together their sponsors. I must say that I do hope that the Business Parks Association will seek to obtain more sponsorship from the private sector, and thus get out of the shadow of the public sector. I say this as a very long established supporter and promoter of the Business Parks Association, and indeed I speak as one of the midwives who delivered the present organisation with David Shore, Stephen Elmer and others.

As you know, I have strongly encouraged the development of Business Associations in both East Grinstead and Haywards Heath: indeed I am meeting with the East Grinstead people this afternoon. I think it is of fundamental importance that local business leaders exercise their responsibility to generate a real local debate that seeks to challenge old mind sets.

I very much welcome the emphasis on apprenticeships and I note the substantial increase in young people in Mid Sussex starting apprenticeships last year, thanks to the Coalition’s investment and the efforts of your members.

We do need to make sure that these young people who don’t want to go to university can still carry on learning and developing their skills. By investing in high-quality apprenticeships, we are also equipping the workforce with the skills our economy needs in the 21st century.

But I want to make it plain that I believe that business and commerce do need to look at how to become much more ambitious for the future. Burgess Hill sits at a tremendous advantage with its proximity to Brighton, which is developing into a fantastically exciting place, with its excellent and exciting university, and our superb transport connections of the M23 and the M25, and the proximity to Gatwick and Heathrow, and the Rail Service, and the fact that so many people want to come here.

This town and the wider area are affluent and well-connected, and we now need to make it a hot spot of industry, engineering and commercial and scientific expertise. What we must see here is the creation of critical mass for Mid Sussex with like-minded companies with enlightened managers working on similar things.

This means that we would be sustaining a commitment in Mid Sussex and Burgess Hill, to a highly skilled, productive economy for the future in which the most modern industries suitable for our area would be the key drivers. The foundations are here but we need to build on them.

If we can go forward in this spirit, we will create a much more vibrant, enterprising and exciting culture, which will attract notice, investment, and opportunities.

In short, we need to create clusters: they will need skilled researchers, world class managers and a flow of international and domestic capital as well as people making and selling things.

As some of you may know, I am myself investigating a private sector initiative to move this forward between Burgess Hill and Brighton, and from Brighton across to Southampton via Portsmouth and I want to set up Mid Sussex Capital Partners to bring private capital and investment into the area.

It would help to develop the sort of creative clusters that I have mentioned, that are essential for economic growth, making the most of the University of Sussex, of the brilliant Brighton University through to Portsmouth and Southampton: an area with ample office space and housing. It is within easy reach of London and international air travel between Gatwick and Southampton airports.

The advantage of this conceptual idea is that it would begin with the creation of jobs and extend to kick-start a knowledge based economy. It would also help incidentally to draw out some of the wealth from the capital to benefit the coastal towns.

These are very challenging and exciting times and we really must grab these opportunities with both hands: no-one, repeat no-one is going to do it for us and we are going to have to do it ourselves.

And we will.