Weekly Policy Report 23 – 27 January 2023 

E for Economy– Chancellor Jeremy Hunt gave a speech on the economy at Bloomberg’s European HQ. He set out four pillars on which the government would grow the economy. These are Enterprise, Education, Employment and Everywhere, which encompasses levelling up, infrastructure, and investment zones. Here’s our take, and you can read the full speech here.

The Trade Secretary’s statements – On Monday we attended an event hosted by Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch at Lancaster House. She outlined her top five priorities for trade this year, which include removing barriers to trade, increasing exports and inward investment, signing trade deals, and defending free trade. Read her full speech here.

Playing with fire – This week the government published its draft code on ‘fire and rehire’, the controversial practice of dismissing employees to rehire them under new conditions. We are interested in our members’ views, and will be consulting on this in our February Policy Voice survey. The government consultation can also be viewed here.

An assessment of investment – What is our government doing about economic growth? How can the UK unleash capital and boost investment? Our Chief Economist Kitty Ussher discussed these very topics alongside the City minister on a panel hosted by the think tank Policy Exchange on Wednesday. You can watch that here.

Social butterfly – Our Director of Policy Roger Barker has flitted from event to event this week to discuss how businesses can adopt more sustainable practices, and how they can develop their environmental, social and governance (ESG) responsibilities. Find our latest work on this here, here, and here.

Next week watch out for…

Wednesday 1 February

• Prime Minister’s Questions at midday

• The House of Commons International Trade Committee will take oral evidence on the future of the global rules based trading system

• We will be publishing our Director’s Economic Confidence Index which measures how confident members are in the prospects for the UK economy.

• The Treasury’s consultation on measures businesses want to see in the Spring Budget 2023 closes at 5pm. You can respond here.

Thursday 2 February

• The Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee will make the decision whether to raise, lower or maintain interest rates, with most analysts expecting a further rise.