UK urged to expand ‘high-skilled’ immigration to help with AI
Q: How can British companies attract the talent it needs for the artificial intelligence revolution?
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt says:
A pro-growth agenda would start with high-skilled immigration, which is now in place here and should be expanded.
Schmidt points out that a lot of “incredibly smart people” are now getting graduate degrees in AI.
The key, he says, is either to keep them in Britain or get them to move here from Europe.
Schmidt agrees that more AI talent is needed, as the technology is hard, complicated, and it’s being built right now.
He admits:
Sometimes it doesn’t make sense to me, and I have a PhD in the area.
But with a little bit of time, and the right leadership., Britian can have all those people.
Schmidt points out:
They love living here.
A good moment to wrap up the session.
Key events
Britain’s competition watchdog has pushed back against some implied criticism from the prime minister today.
In his speech this morning, Keir Starmer told international investors he’d ensure that the UK’s economic and competition regulators “take growth as seriously as this room does”.
The Competitions and Markets Authority has now rebuffed the implication that it is neglecting growth.
A CMA spokesperson has told the Guardian:
“Driving growth and innovation has been an explicit strategic priority for the CMA over the last two years. It continues to be a focus for the work we are doing.”
Macquarie commites £20bn of UK investment
Australia’s Macquarie Group have announced a £20bn package of investment in the UK today.
Attending the investment summit, Macquarie CEO Shemara Wikramanayake announced the company will help fund a network of fast-charging electric vehicle infrastructure in the UK.
The investmetn will see Macquarie’s portfolio company Roadchef install around 650 fast-charging points at its motorway service area sites.
Macquarie (often criticised for its management of Thames Water) says the upgraded EV charging facilities will be partly powered by 9 MW of new solar energy capacity installed on-site.
Roadchef will also test electric charging solutions for heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) at two key locations across the motorway network.
Wikramanayake (who we saw earlier today) says:
“The upgrade of Roadchef sites is our latest in a long line of investments in UK infrastructure and we have plans to invest more. We believe that infrastructure investment helps create strong foundations for economic growth, job creation, better services for the public and stronger communities. We are fully invested in the UK’s success and look forward to playing our part in delivering the investment the country needs.”
Macquarie is also planning to invest in:
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5GW of new offshore wind developments, including projects off the Orkney and Lincolnshire coasts
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Developing new solar power and battery energy storage projects, including the UK’s largest new solar project in Nottinghamshire by Island Green Power
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Supporting investment in the gas transmission network, including upgrades to the distribution networks in North West England, West Midlands, East Midlands, East of England and London
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Upgrading digital infrastructure, including bringing ultra-fast full fibre and gigabit wireless broadband to rural communities from Somerset to Cumbria
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Investing in the creation of new homes, including developments in Edinburgh and Birmingham
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Supporting the growth of high potential UK companies in areas such as utilities connections, wind farm performance analytics and smart metering led from Glasgow, Nottingham, and Watford
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Supporting investment to build the UK’s first reservoir in 30 years [in Havant, Hampshire] alongside upgrades to essential water and wastewater infrastructure across England’s South East
Video: ‘We’re determined to repair Britain’s brand,’ Keir Starmer tells investment summit
Green Party MP for North Herefordshire, Ellie Chowns, has criticised Keir Starmer’s pledge to rip up bureaucracy to get growth moving.
Following his speech at the investment summit, Chowns says:
“Starmer’s pledge to investors that he will “cut red tape” is a tired cliché that, in practice, too often means harming environmental standards and workers’ rights. We’ve had fourteen years of successive Conservative governments promising to “cut red tape,” and all we have to show for it is a flatlining economy and falling living standards.
If Starmer is serious about attracting investment to the UK, he will need a bolder approach that delivers on the “change” he promised in his election campaign. He could start by re-evaluating our relationship with our biggest trading partner, the European Union.”
Secretary of State for Transport Louise Haigh has resisted talking about the row over her criticism of P&O Ferries and their owner DP World, The Sun’s Ashley Armstrong reports:
I tried to ask Louise Haig if she felt like she’d been thrown under the bus on DP Ports debacle. She marched off.
— Ashley Armstrong (@AArmstrong_says) October 14, 2024
As reported earlier, DP World are attending the summit, and have announced a £1bn expansion of its London Gateway container port.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan is hoping that the Labour governmnet will agree closer alignment with the European Union, and isn’t ruling out an eventual return to the single market.
Speaking at the Government’s international investment summit, he told the PA news agency:
“I’m quite clear that all successful countries do the most trade with their nearest neighbours, that’s one of the signs of success.
We’ve got on our doorstep, not just friends and colleagues and family indeed, we’ve got a market of more than 500 million people.
The good news is the Prime Minister spent a lot of the last three months visiting friends in Europe, whether it’s the president of France, the prime minister of Italy, the chancellor of Germany or the European Union, indeed, in Brussels.
The current Brexit deal we have comes up before review next year. I’m hoping, unlike last time, there will be closer alignment, rather than divergence.
We should be looking at a whole host of issues and talking about them – whether it’s a youth mobility scheme, whether it’s seeing what we can do to bring people closer together.
I think the reality is, in the short term, we probably aren’t going to get back as members of the single market. But it’s something we shouldn’t be scared to talk about.”
M&G chief: UK renaissance underway amid growth push
Richard Partington
Andrea Rossi, the chief executive of the London-based investment giant M&G, says global investors are looking at Britain differently under a Labour government.
Speaking at the investment summit, Rossi told my colleague Richard Partington:
“The last years have suffered a little bit, you know, Brexit, Covid, and instability. There is to a certain extent a renaissance of the UK, as people are looking at the UK again. Not only local investors but international investors.”
With more than £100bn invested in the UK already, M&G is one of the headline sponsors of the event, and is clearly in tune with the message the government wants to send. Rossi says he has held meetings with ministers throughout the day who all “speak the same language” on the priority of economic growth. “The alignment [between them], that relentless focus on growth. That is what is attracting people.”
Rossi says M&G is keen to see progress on reducing burdensome regulation, particularly in the planning system, but that he is also full-square behind the government’s employment rights reforms and the need to maintain some regulations to ensure a sustainable economy.
He says:
“If you want to have sustainable growth you need to make sure you take care of the most important stakeholders. Who are the most important stakeholders? It’s the people working.”
However, he warned against Rachel Reeves announcing large tax increases in the budget in two weeks’ time, saying:
“You’re not going to grow the economy if you tax the economy much, much more. Because then you’re killing the economy. You might have a short-term benefit but long-term there’s no benefit at all.”
Asked about the suggestions that the chancellor could raise capital gains tax, Rossi said:
“I cannot speculate on what she will do. But I’m sure that they will balance very well, whatever they do, with their ultimate ambition of growing the economy. And I’m convinced they’ll be very pragmatic about it.”
In a further attempt to woo international investors, the UK has launched a consultation into its new industrial strategy, dubbed Invest 2035.
The foreword of the strategy begins by declaring “Growth is the number one mission of this government” – which we’ve already heard from Keir Starmer today.
The government says its industrial Strategy will be “ambitious and targeted”, saying.
Its primary objective is to drive growth, by taking advantage of the UK’s unique strengths and untapped potential, enabling the UK’s world-leading sectors to adapt and grow, and seizing opportunities to lead in new sectors, with high quality, well-paid jobs.
It will shape the type of growth being pursued: the Government will also seek to support Net Zero, regional growth, and economic security and resilience. It will be grounded in long-term stability, a renewed commitment to free and fair trade, and a pro-business approach focused on reducing barriers to investment in the UK.
And as expectred, it foguses on eight growth-driving sectors: Advanced Manufacturing, Clean Energy Industries, Creative Industries, Defence, Digital and Technologies, Financial Services, Life Sciences, and Professional and Business Services.
But there’s very little about migration – an issue which Eric Schmidt identified as crucial earlier today.
The document says:
Our people are supported by an immigration system that attracts the brightest and best, with the UK being the second most attractive country in the G20 for young people.
Sam Coates of Sky News has whizzed through the document, and plucked out the key points:
The government’s Industrial Strategy Green Paper – what does it amount to?
1/ Not ruling out subsidies to support advance manufacturing (thought not promising them either) pic.twitter.com/fGnS4vxRtf
— Sam Coates Sky (@SamCoatesSky) October 14, 2024
2/ Acknowledgement there’s a +long+ list of things to fix before we can build lots of clean energy projects
The UK doesn’t yet have the skills, the costs in the UK are too high and other counties are cheaper pic.twitter.com/s9nQIOFKwT
— Sam Coates Sky (@SamCoatesSky) October 14, 2024
3/ Creative industries begging to “maximise access to important markets to tour and collaborate” but EU sources tell me agreement on that is a long way off pic.twitter.com/vX6n9on4GK
— Sam Coates Sky (@SamCoatesSky) October 14, 2024
6/ There’s a long list of things the industrial strategy has yet to consider:
skills, recruitment of international talent, data, innovation, technology adoption and diffusion, business finance, competition, regulation, energy prices, grid connections, planning, and… pic.twitter.com/4Di8RC6nS3
— Sam Coates Sky (@SamCoatesSky) October 14, 2024
10/ Government acknowledge it’s on course to miss 2030 clean energy promise without fixing 5-10 year delay of connecting to the grid pic.twitter.com/48ZH7LPs6x
— Sam Coates Sky (@SamCoatesSky) October 14, 2024
11/ Gvt promises to stop regulators impacting growth …. (this is the “Thames Water” promise) … but that’s a tricky balance to strike pic.twitter.com/jr8hp8mkxQ
— Sam Coates Sky (@SamCoatesSky) October 14, 2024
12/ An explicit aim of government is to “boost investment and increase pension pots”
Does that mean nothing on additional tax on pensions in the Budget?? pic.twitter.com/0GVxyXslHV
— Sam Coates Sky (@SamCoatesSky) October 14, 2024
15/ And almost nothing in this industrial strategy on migration
— Sam Coates Sky (@SamCoatesSky) October 14, 2024
Stop Sizewell C protesters at the UK’s international investment summit
It’s nearly as busy outside the Guildhall as inside, with a second group of protestors holding a demonstration.
Campaigners opposed to the Sizewell C nuclear plant unfurled two banners saying “Sizewell C is a Toxic Investment” this morning outside the investment summit.
They hope to persuade international investors not to support the project.
Alison Downes of Stop Sizewell C says:
“It’s fantastic that Britain is open for business, but we’re here to tell international investors that, unless they want to find themselves embroiled in another HS2, they should put their money into renewables instead of slow, risky, expensive, “toxic” Sizewell C.
The reality is that Sizewell C cannot help the Labour government achieve its Energy Mission, and if UK investors won’t touch it, neither should international ones, nor the taxpayer.”
The ‘Final Investment Decision’ (FID) on the proposed plant on the Suffolk Coast has already been delayed. Yesterday, the GMB and Unite unions urged the government to sign off the investment quickly.
Australian investment bank Macquarie is also attending today’s investment summit, despite having been criticised for its role in the privatisation of England’s water industry.
Shemara Wikramanayake, Macquarie’s CEO is there, and was seated next to chancellor Rachel Reeves…
…and also appears to have been chatting to Pat McFadden, chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster:
Last year Wikramanayake insisted that the investment bank’s UK nickname, the “vampire kangaroo”, was disappointing, after it piled debt onto Thames Water which is now close to collapse.
Climate campaigners are unimpressed by today’s announcement of more investment for Stansted airport (see earlier post).
Alethea Warrington, head of aviation, heat, and energy at climate charity Possible, says:
“Expanding airports to encourage even more flights is the last thing we need if we’re going to tackle the climate crisis.
“Instead of allowing high-carbon sectors such as aviation to expand, the government should rein in aviation growth by banning private jets and taxing frequent flyers, and focus on supporting investment in clean, low carbon technologies and climate-friendly transport.”
Larry Fink is one of the most powerful investors at today’s summit; on Friday, his asset manager BlackRock reported that it now holds assets of $11.5 trillion.
He’s been meeting ministers this morning, including deputy PM Angela Raynor:
And chancellor Rachel Reeves:
While the cream of global investing hobnob inside the Guildhall, outside there are protesters calling for a wealth tax to fund investment.
Youth climate justice campaign group Green New Deal Rising are displaying a banner reading “Tax Extreme Wealth”, as they urge Rachel Reeves to target the wealthiest in this month’s budget.
Fatima Ibrahim, co-director of Green New Deal Rising, says:
“Private investment alone will not fix our economy – and it certainly won’t rescue our public services or tackle the climate crisis. Instead of taking freebies from the super-rich and abdicating responsibility to the private sector, which has polluted our water and ruined our railways, it’s time for Rachel Reeves to make the common-sense, popular choice to end the unfairness in our tax system.
She must choose to tax extreme wealth by implementing an annual 2% tax on assets over 10 million in the Autumn Budget. Doing so would unlock billions for urgently needed public investment to benefit our communities, not just wealthy shareholders”.
Today, we showed up at the International Investment Summit #UKinvestment to deliver a clear message: private business won’t save us.
We need public investment for public priorities.
That’s why, this Autumn budget, the chancellor must tax extreme wealth 👇🏼 pic.twitter.com/52qrbznQQO
— Green New Deal Rising (@GNDRising) October 14, 2024
Sir Elton John to perform tonight
Richard Partington
Labour is pulling out all the stops for its international investment summit.
Business leaders gathered in the City of London have just been told Sir Elton John will be performing tonight at an ultra-exclusive dinner reception at St Paul’s Cathedral, where King Charles will be in attendance.
The dinner will include dining courtesy of the three-Michelin-starred-chef Clare Smyth, at an event with the cabinet, where one Labour staffer said there had been “fights” over who would get to attend because of the very limited capacity for company bosses.
Sir Lucian Grainge, the chair of Universal Music Group, confirmed that the Rocket man would be performing this evening, while speaking on a panel session with the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, on the “UK’s soft power as a hard investment opportunity”.
“He’s an ambassador. He wanted to be here,” says Grainge, to applause and whoops from some of the big beasts of capitalism attending the event at the Guildhall in the City of London.
“I wish you could see the politicians’ faces. We spend a lot of time in meetings, we don’t get out very often,” Nandy replied. Perhaps, but would it be unfair to suggest that Labour politicians have been in hot water of late for taking freebies to attend superstar gigs?
The panel session, involving Gareth Southgate, the former England manager, and the head of production at Netflix, Anna Mallet, highlighted how Britain punches above its weight for cultural capital.
Southgate talked up changes to kick-off times in the Premier League as a key for attracting TV money into England’s national sport. “A lot of people didn’t like,” he says, but it brought the “ability to bring in best talent. The best players wanted to come here, and the product improved.”
Grainge warned the UK was “at a crossroads” in the market for culture, as new technologies helped the rise of talent around the world – including Latin America, India and China (a country where he says it was an “entirely counterfeit market” 20 years ago but is now the seventh biggest in the world).
Saying he is spending more time in the UK recently, as a market where Universal will invest, he adds:
“The advantage for the UK, about the UK as an investment, is that it has as the prime minister keeps repeating, is the rule of law, a non-politicised justice system, and it respects and rewards for investment and innovation and creativity around copyright and IP.”
