The Treasury has created a new team to engage with City firms as the new Labour government looks to bulk out the department’s business engagement unit, City A.M. can reveal.
It is understood that more staff have been moved into business engagement roles since the election as the new government tries to make good on its pledge to govern in partnership with business.
As part of this scale-up, a new team has been created to focus specifically on engaging with financial services firms.
The Treasury’s business engagement team sits within the Enterprise and Growth Unit, which Chancellor Rachel Reeves promised to beef up while in opposition.
The Enterprise and Growth Unit, created in 1997, works across the government to develop innovation-friendly policies. However, a recent report from the Institute for Government suggested that it may be “underpowered,” and was often outweighed by the Treasury’s finance function.
In her Mais lecture, Reeves said the Enterprise and Growth Unit would be brought into fiscal deliberations, “hard-wiring growth into budget and spending review processes”.
The business team is responsible for working with firms to develop policies to help fuel growth. Work in the future is likely to focus on developing a skills strategy and navigating the net zero transition.
“The Chancellor has been clear that she wants to lead the most pro-growth Treasury in our country’s history. That means working in partnership with business to fix the foundations of our economy,” a Treasury spokesperson said.
“Expansion of our business engagement function is supporting this collaborative approach to pro-business policymaking that best benefits British enterprise,” they added.
City groups were supportive of the move, suggesting it demonstrated a strong commitment to genuinely engage the business community on growth-friendly policies.
“We welcome the government’s focus on growth through the scaling up of this important unit,” Sarah Boon, managing director of corporate affairs and strategic policy at UK Finance said.
“The financial services sector is a vital part of the UK economy, and we look forward to continuing our work in partnership with government to help support its mission of economic growth and ensure the industry is as competitive as possible,” Boon said.
Reeves has burnished her pro-growth credentials since entering No.11, arguing that generating growth would be a “national mission” under the new government.
On Thursday the Chancellor is set to attend the G20 meeting of finance ministers in Brazil, where she is expected to declare the UK is “open for business once again”.
She will say that the UK can only succeed in its mission to boost economic growth if it works alongside businesses around the world, encouraging them to invest in the UK.
“Over the coming two days I will be banging the drum for British business and urging leaders to take another look at us,” she is expected to say.