Labour bids to woo CEOs by promising 'business first' approach to boosting Britain's economy 

Labour will try to get business on side today as the party launches its plan to get the economy growing.

More than 300 business chiefs – including the chairman of Tesco and chief executives of Aviva, SSE and HSBC – will attend the party’s business conference in Canary Wharf, London.

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves will tell them that Labour is ‘back in business’ as she pitches the party as the answer to the country’s economic woes.

Leader Sir Keir Starmer will attend the conference, which will hear details of a Labour-commissioned review into the UK’s start-up industry by independent peer and former Goldman Sachs economist Lord O’Neill.

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves will tell them that Labour is ‘back in business’ as she pitches the party as the answer to the country’s economic woes

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves and Lord Jim O’Neill meet in the Houses of Parliament, London, to discuss the Start-Up Review ahead of the party’s business conference

Rachel Reeves and Lord Jim O’Neill during a visit to Plexal in east London, where they visit start up companies and VR training company Moonhub

The Shadow chancellor tried on a VR headset when she visited Moonhub in east London

His Start-Up, Scale-Up review recommends removing barriers to institutional investment in firms with records of high growth while also giving ‘real’ independence to the state-owned British Business Bank. It also recommends the compilation of new metrics on the success of every UK university’s spin-out companies.

Miss Reeves will tell the conference: ‘These are challenging economic times. But I know the spirit of enterprise, of creativity, of endeavour are as present in Britain today as they ever have been.

‘We are at a post-Brexit crossroads. We can go down the road of managed decline, falling behind our competitors, or we can draw on bold thinking to propel us forward.

‘That is why Labour today welcome this radical plan to make Britain the high-growth, start-up hub of the world. Start-Up, Scale-Up provides crucial insights towards achieving one of the guiding ambitions of the next Labour government: to make Britain the best place to start, and to grow, a business. And it sends a powerful message: that Labour is back in business.’

Leader Sir Keir Starmer will attend the conference, which will hear details of a Labour-commissioned review into the UK’s start-up industry

Lord O’Neill, whose review drew on consultation with entrepreneurs, investors and policy-makers, said: ‘The more all political parties support the ecosystem of start-ups for the UK, the more they become entwined in the DNA of policy thinking for the future. ‘Leading this review has underlined the huge potential Britain’s start-ups have for changing our economic fortunes, especially in towns and cities outside of London.’

Miss Reeves will say the review’s recommendations are the first step in closing what the party says is a ‘£16 billion investment gap in high-growth firms that the UK is currently missing out on’.

When she commissioned the review, Miss Reeves said: ‘Britain has immense resources in the creativity and drive of our entrepreneurs, and the innovative capacity of our universities. But something I have heard repeatedly from businesspeople is a real worry about the small number of start-ups listing in the UK and the stubborn obstacles preventing many of them from scaling up.’