British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Finance Minister Rachel Reeves met business leaders on Tuesday, seeking to hammer home their message that ministers had been told to refocus attention on economic growth with every major decision.
Starmer and Reeves held a meeting in London’s historic finance centre with leading chief executives including Lloyds Banking Group’s Charlie Nunn, BT’s Allison Kirkby, Tesco’s Ken Murphy and BAE Systems’ Charles Woodburn, the government said.
At the meeting, Starmer said that the government’s “growth mission” was the driving force behind policy decisions and ministers would have to set out how they would meet that target in order to get them approved, Downing Street said.
“Growth is the number one priority for this government: economic growth, wealth creation,” Starmer said after the meeting.
One chief executive who attended the meeting said Starmer and Reeves were open to ideas on how to achieve that.
The CEO, who asked not to be named, said it was now important that the government continued to make announcements on scaling back regulation and improving infrastructure to build positive momentum in the economy in the coming months.
Reeves is due to give a major speech on Wednesday where she will outline her plans to revive Britain’s stagnant economy.
The speech will be closely watched after a rise in global borrowing costs earlier this month demonstrated how tight Britain’s public finances are.
This led to speculation that Reeves may need to cut spending or raise taxes to keep to her self-imposed rules limiting borrowing.
Reeves and Starmer promised voters ahead of last July’s election that they would turn Britain into the fastest-growing Group of Seven economy.
But since the Labour Party took power, the economy has lost momentum with many employers blaming Reeves’ first budget plan, which included an increase in the tax burden on businesses.
The government set out new plans on Tuesday to relax rules so companies can release some of the 160 billion pound ($199 billion) in corporate pension surpluses to invest in their businesses or payments to staff, rather than just keeping them in safer but lower-return assets such as government bonds.
A report by industry body Pensions and Lifetime Saving Association last year broadly supported more surplus sharing, but noted that surpluses could change as a result of market fluctuations.
