Compass Chair, Neal Lawson, argues that the inaugural meeting of the Business Council of Britain (including the likes of Damon Buffini) is fine, but really we need to address social ills first.

Yesterday, Gordon Brown’s Business Council for Britain met for the first time. The PM, Chancellor Alistair Darling and other ministers met with the likes of Sir Richard Branson, private equity tycoon Damon Buffini (below), GlaxoSmithKline’s Jean-Pierre Garnier and Sir Alan Sugar, chair and CEO of Amstrad but now more famous for the Apprentice TV shows.

The agenda was globalisation, skills and climate change. But the underlying issue for all business is how to make as much profit as possible. That’s fair enough. It’s their job. But we all pay a price for the relentless focus on making money, and the demand for free markets that goes with it. The objective of these people is to get us to pay as much as possible for their goods. If they employ us, their goal is to pay us as little as possible for as much flexibility as they need.

So what else should they be discussing? As they are chauffeur-driven to and from business meetings, these captains of industry probably don’t realise that there is a social recession of time, poverty, stress and mental illness afflicting our country. This recession has its roots in the prioritisation of the market over society. So, in the nation’s interest, what should they be discussing at their meetings?

They could start by discussing pay – comparing their exorbitant salaries to the poverty inducing minimum wage. Perhaps they might like to raise the issue of a living wage – which is exactly what it says on the tin – a wage their employees can actually live on. Next they could address the failure rate of poorer people in schools and in particular their participation at university. This is an issue not entirely unrelated to how much people are paid. Turning back to their own companies, they could discuss how to entrench regulations to ensure no one from the developing world is in effect treated as a slave to supply us in the west with consumer goods.

Finally, while they are at it they could tackle the issue of work-life balance. But given that there don’t seem to be any women on the council yet, this may not be a popular item with the boys.

Britain is becoming a divided nation. At the top, we have people like the Business Council members; the rich untouchables who order the world for the rest of us. Next there is an anxious prosperity of those in the middle who are losing control over their lives and watching those at the top soar away from them. At the bottom are the poor whose health we read today is worse, compared to the rich, than it was in 1997 when New Labour came to power.

We need entrepreneurs and innovators, but most of all we need a strong and cohesive society. It is not a Business Council the prime minister should be convening, but a Social Council of Britain. Until we put society first, it will be the profit of a few and not the needs of the many that are championed, inside and outside of government.

Neal Lawson is Chair of the left pressure group, Compass, the fastest growing group of its kind in British politics today.  This piece orginally appeared on the Guardian’s Comment Is Free site.