Starmer to hail more than £50bn in investment at key summit
The government will on Monday welcome more than £50bn of investment in the British economy as Sir Keir Starmer tries to reset his administration after a first hundred days marked by scandal and infighting.
Sky News has learnt that the International Investment Summit in the City of London will comprise more than £50bn of deal announcements – or roughly twice the £28bn unveiled at the previous comparable gathering held under the former Conservative administration.
The total figure to be announced on Monday was still being finalised this weekend amid continuing negotiations with companies.
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Sources said, however, that the final amount would “certainly” be in excess of £50bn.
The summit will be attended by executives from globally important companies such as Alphabet, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs and Deepmind.
In recent days, a row emerged involving DP World, which had been planning to announce a £1bn investment in the London Gateway port.
The company threatened to cancel its attendance at the conference and review the investment in the wake of comments by the transport secretary, Louise Haigh, labelling its P&O Ferries subsidiary “a rogue operator”.
After Downing Street officials intervened, the dispute appeared to have been resolved this weekend, with the investment proceeding.
Sky News can also reveal that the summit will include a behind-closed-doors session chaired by the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, and a number of chief executives.
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Jonathan Reynolds is to meet with business leaders behind closed doors. File pic: Reuters
The group will, according to insiders, jointly scrutinise a green paper on industrial strategy that will also be published on Monday.
One invitee said they had been “asked to mark the government’s homework”.
A source close to Mr Reynolds said: “When the business secretary said this government would work in partnership with business, he meant it.
“We respect the expertise of business leaders and want their voice at the heart of policymaking.
“That’s why we’re getting them around the table before the strategy is published, so it works for the industries it’s designed to benefit.”
On Friday, Sky News revealed that Sir Keir would use his speech at the investment summit to say that his administration will scrutinise watchdogs across a range of industries to ensure that they are not acting as barriers to growth.
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Sir Keir is said by officials to be determined to deliver the message that regulators such as Ofwat, Ofgem, the Prudential Regulation Authority and the Competition and Markets Authority should be focused on the competitiveness of the UK economy.
The event is being seen as a test of Labour’s economic agenda in the eyes of investors which wield influence over the destination of trillions of pounds of investment funding.
His speech will come, however, against the backdrop of a financial crisis at Thames Water, Britain’s biggest water utility, which is backed by sovereign wealth funds and pension funds from countries including Abu Dhabi, Canada and China.
Reports in recent weeks have suggested that global investors have become so alarmed by Ofwat’s approach to the Thames Water crisis that they are reluctant to commit further sums to British infrastructure projects.
On Thursday, the government appointed Poppy Gustafsson, the former boss of cybersecurity company Darktrace, as investment minister, ensuring that the government avoided the ignominy of staging Monday’s summit without a minister for investment being in place.
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Clare Barclay, who leads Microsoft’s operations in the UK, has been appointed to chair a new Industrial Strategy Council.
Officials declined to comment on Sunday on the headline figures that would be announced at the summit.
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New laws to reduce the use of short prison sentences and toughen up community punishments are expected to be introduced within weeks.
Ministers are expected to introduce the new legislation to the Commons after the summer recess.
The changes will abolish most short-term prison sentences and introduce an earned release scheme, based on a model used in Texas, where prisoners who demonstrate good behaviour can be freed earlier – while those who disobey prison rules are detained for longer.
This will include some prisoners jailed for violent offences, although those convicted of the most dangerous crimes and for terrorism will be excluded.
Shabana Mahmood (left) was said to be impressed by the system in place in Texan prisons. Pic: PA
The new bill will introduce many of the changes recommended by the independent sentencing review, carried out by former Conservative justice minister David Gauke earlier this year. It represents one of the largest overhauls of sentencing in a generation and marks a cornerstone of the government’s effort to reduce the size of the prison population in England and Wales.
As well as reducing the use of short custodial sentences, the changes will also toughen up community sentences, introducing a wider range of punishments for those serving time outside of prison. This could include bans on going to stadiums to watch sports or music events, as well as restrictions on visiting pubs, and the wider use of drug testing.
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Becky Johnson speaks with Daniel, a former convict, who was released early after prisons reached capacity.
Other punishments could include driving and travel bans, as well as restriction zones – confining them to certain areas. Some of these can already be imposed for certain crimes, but the new laws will mean that these could be handed down by a judge for any offence.
Under the legislation, which it is understood will be introduced in September, prison sentences of 12 months or less will be scrapped, except for in exceptional circumstances such as domestic abuse cases. Meanwhile, the length of suspended sentences – where an offender is not sent to prison immediately unless they commit a further crime – will be extended from two years to three.
The justice secretary is believed to have been inspired by the earned release scheme during a visit to the States, where she learned about the model being used in Texas to cut crime and bring their prison population under control.
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England is on course to run out of prison places for adult men by November, the Justice Secretary has warned.
Shabana Mahmood said that criminals who break the rules “must be punished” and that those serving their sentences in the community “must have their freedom restricted there, too”.
She added: “Rightly, the public expect the government to do everything in its power to keep Britain safe, and that’s what we’re doing.”
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice added: “This government inherited a prison system days away from collapse.
“That is why we are building 14,000 more prison places, with 2,500 already delivered, but we know we can’t build our way out of this crisis.
“Without further action, we will run out of prison places in months, courts would halt trials and the police [would] cancel arrests. That is why we are overhauling sentencing to make sure we always have the prison places needed to keep the country safe.”
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