Prime Minister Andy Burnham will meet chief executives from some of Britain’s largest companies on Monday as the government seeks business support for its plans on economic growth, infrastructure, innovation, and devolution.
Burnham is due to host a Downing Street reception involving executives from HSBC, Standard Chartered, BP, Shell, BT, Vodafone, and other major employers.
Before the reception, he will hold a separate roundtable with British entrepreneurs working in fintech, artificial intelligence, clean energy, and advanced manufacturing.
The government intends to use the meetings to set out how greater devolution could support infrastructure delivery and to encourage a stronger culture around innovation and entrepreneurship.
The programme brings established corporate groups and younger growth businesses into the same policy discussion, but the two groups face markedly different investment constraints.
Large energy, banking, telecommunications, and industrial companies make capital decisions over long periods and require visibility on taxation, regulation, infrastructure, skills, planning, and financing. High-growth technology businesses are more likely to face pressure around access to scale-up capital, public procurement, specialist talent, computing capacity, and the ability to expand internationally without moving significant parts of their operations abroad.
Both groups are operating against a mixed economic backdrop. UK output has returned to growth and some business-confidence measures have improved, but investment remains subdued and businesses continue to report pressure from energy, labour, finance, and taxation.
BDO’s August Optimism Index recently reached its highest level in almost two years, supported by stronger services activity. Other surveys have shown a less positive picture, particularly around hiring and investment intentions.
The divergence matters because stronger sentiment does not automatically translate into capital expenditure. Companies commit to factories, digital systems, research programmes, network infrastructure, new offices, and additional capacity when they have sufficient confidence in demand and in the policy environment that will apply over the life of those investments.
Energy policy is likely to be prominent at Monday’s reception given the participation of BP and Shell. The sector is balancing requirements for substantial investment in electricity infrastructure and lower-carbon energy with political uncertainty around domestic oil and gas development and the future shape of the UK energy market.
Telecommunications groups face similarly long investment cycles as fibre, mobile, enterprise connectivity, and digital infrastructure require substantial expenditure before returns are realised. Banks, meanwhile, remain central to the availability and price of credit while also being exposed to changes in taxation and financial regulation.
The entrepreneur roundtable places the government’s growth agenda closer to the challenge of commercialising emerging technologies. The UK has a substantial research base in areas including artificial intelligence and clean technology, but converting that technical strength into large domestic companies depends on access to growth capital, customers, infrastructure, and experienced management.
Advanced manufacturing creates another connection between technology policy and regional development. New manufacturing investment can produce skilled employment and deeper supply chains, but site selection is influenced by power availability, transport links, planning, workforce capability, and incentives as well as the underlying technology.
Burnham is expected to argue that greater devolution can help address some of those constraints by giving local areas more influence over infrastructure and economic development.
That approach reflects his experience in Greater Manchester, where devolved institutions have played an expanded role in transport, skills, housing, and regional economic policy. Extending the model nationally would put more responsibility on city regions and local authorities to align public investment with private-sector requirements.
The effectiveness of deeper devolution will depend on the powers transferred, the funding attached to them, and whether local institutions have sufficient capacity to deliver complex infrastructure and regeneration programmes.
Fiscal policy remains the other central constraint. Finance minister John Healey has begun setting out the government’s economic approach ahead of an annual Budget in which spending priorities and tax decisions will have to be balanced against borrowing costs and the state of the public finances.
Businesses will be looking for greater clarity on how the government intends to support investment without creating additional uncertainty elsewhere in the tax and regulatory environment.
The Downing Street discussions provide an opportunity for companies to put those constraints directly to ministers. Their longer-term significance will depend on whether the government’s growth and devolution programme produces changes to infrastructure delivery, investment conditions, innovation policy, and business costs after the meetings have finished.
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