Starmer growth push shocks ex-Google chief as Reeves warned over Budget – live

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has announced a new British Growth Partnership within the British Business Bank (BBB).

The partnership is expected to help bring institutional investors such as pension funds together with the BBB to make long-term, fully commercial investments by the end of 2025.

Encouraging British pension funds to invest more in the UK was a key goal of the previous government, and one the new Cabinet is also pursuing.

BBB chief executive Louis Taylor said: “By establishing the British Growth Partnership, the bank will encourage more UK pension fund investment into the UK’s fastest growing, most innovative companies.

“In addition, reforms to the bank’s financial framework, putting our £7.9 billion commercial programmes on a permanent footing, means we can flexibly reinvest our investment returns over the long term to increase growth and prosperity across the UK.”

British economic instability has ended and the new Government is bringing investment and jobs back to Britain, the Chancellor has said.

In a speech closing Monday’s International Investment Summit, Rachel Reeves told the world’s biggest businesses they can look forward to “a true partnership” with the new Government as it works to boost growth.

She said: “When we said we would end instability, make growth our national mission and enter a true partnership with business, we meant it.

“The decisions which lie ahead of us will not always be easy. But by taking the right choices to grow our economy and drive investment we will create good jobs and new opportunities across every part of the country.

“That is the Britain we are building.”

Delivering on a manifesto promise, Ms Reeves announced that the existing Leeds-based UK Infrastructure Bank will be transformed into the National Wealth Fund (NWF) with £27.8 billion to invest in clean energy and growth industries.

David Davis has choked up in the Commons talking of Alex Salmond, who died suddenly at the weekend.

Although they had very different outlooks, the former SNP leader and the man who once vied to lead the Tory party were personal friends.

 Commons speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle also said that Mr Salmond left a “deep and lasting legacy”, as he led tributes to the former Scottish first minister in parliament.

Rachel Reeves is set to speak to end the International Investment Summit at 4:20 pm today. The chancellor will likely highlight the investments announced as part of today’s event, including the £1.1 billion for London’s Stansted Airport.

It’s unlikely any Budget measures will be unveiled by the chancellor, with around only two weeks until the event. However, Ms Reeves may take the opportunity to reiterate Labour’s central message of growth, needing to deal with the ‘inheritance’ of the previous government, and the tough decisions ahead.

As Labour ministers greet business leaders with a celebratory mood, criticism continues from other sectors ahead of the new government’s first budget on 30 October.

Campaigners and charities are maintaining pressure on Labour to scrap or tweak the cutback of winter fuel payments to include more pensioners, as it is feared millions could miss out.

Social Affairs Correspondent Holly Bancroft speaks to a pensioner set to miss out on winter fuel help this year because she is just £3 above the weekly threshold for support.

The Government’s international investment summit is “not about focusing on any one specific person”, Downing Street said when asked why Tesla owner Elon Musk had not been invited.

It has been suggested the billionaire was snubbed after engaging in a Twitter spat with Sir Keir Starmer during rioting in the summer, when he said demonstrators were subject to two-tier policing.

Asked why Mr Musk was not attending, the PM’s official spokesman said: “This summit is not about focusing on any one specific person.

“What you can see today is 300 of the most significant investors, people who can bring significant amounts of capital to the UK, attending this summit, which is obviously hugely significant.”

Ellie Chowns, Green Party MP for North Herefordshire, has criticised the prime minister’s promise to strip back ‘unnecessary’ regulation to boost investment.

She said: “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.”

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan is also in attendance at Labour’s International Investment Summit today, where he has spoken to reporters about Britain’s relationship with the EU.

“I’m quite clear that all successful countries do the most trade with their nearest neighbours, that’s one of the signs of success,” he said.

“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.”

While ministers and business leaders gather in London’s glitzy Guildhall, several protestors have gathered outside in the grey, drizzly weather.

Those from the Green New Deal Rising group are calling for a wealth tax on the UK’s richest to fund green investment.

“Today, we showed up at the International Investment Summit to deliver a clear message: private business won’t save us,” they wrote on Twitter / X, adding: “We need public investment for public priorities”.

Another campaign group, Stop Sizewell C, is also present – protesting against the planned twin nuclear reactors in Sizewell, Suffolk.

Downing Street has promised the government will not let safety standards slip amid a bonfire of red tape to speed up building and planning permission.

Asked how the Government would ensure consumer safety was not undermined in the context of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry’s conclusions on deregulation, Sir Keir Starmer’s official spokesman said: “I think this exercise is about ensuring that regulators aren’t needlessly getting in the way of growth.

“Clearly, there are very important examples of where regulators play a vital role in upholding high safety standards and clearly building safety is one of those examples, and you heard the prime minister speak about that recently in the Houses of Parliament.

“Clearly, we are not going to compromise on those things, but it’s about striking the right balance and clearly the prime minister, the chancellor, have heard lots of feedback and representations from industry about the regulatory environment that this government has inherited and they’re determined to ensure we have a pro-business, pro-innovation regulatory environment.”