Bosses welcome Philip Hammond’s olive branch towards corporate Britain

Pic:Chancellor Philip Hammond is giving a speech to the 2018 Tory conference in Birmingham ( reuters )
Business correspondent(wp/es):

Business leaders on Monday welcomed Chancellor Philip Hammond’s attempt to repair the Conservatives’ battered relationship with corporate Britain in an emollient conference speech.

Senior bosses have voiced mounting frustration with the Government’s attitude to business as Tories remain fixated on Brexit and the threat of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour. 

Relations reached a nadir this summer with ex-Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s reported “f**k business” response to concerns over the UK’s EU exit. 

Hammond’s set-piece, billed as the “f**k ‘f**k business’” speech, instead extended the olive branch to companies, with new commitments on the overhaul of the unpopular apprenticeship levy, which has seen the number of apprentices plummet by nearly a third. The CBI’s director general Carolyn Fairbairn voiced hopes that “the conference can represent a change of tone”. 

Donor and former Tory party treasurer Michael Spencer warned: “The big, medium and small business community are genuinely really upset, disappointed and shocked that whenever the PM talks about business she seems to focus on the bad examples, as opposed to the vast majority who have been successful, invested their own money, paid their taxes and contributed to the economy. They are the economy. without them, the country collapses.

“We really need Theresa May to do a reset on her position and I know my views on this are supported in the party.”

Other senior business figures underlined the message that a change of tack from the Tories towards business was overdue after protracted in-fighting over Brexit.

Chris Grigg, chief executive of landlord British Land, said: “The Conservative party has been quite inwardly focused around Brexit recently, and that has come at the cost of their more traditional focus on business. 

“Whatever you think about Brexit, it is clear that it is going to put pressure on companies which have millions of staff in the UK and a choice over how they invest and allocate resources. But when businesses make those observations they have often come in for significant criticism.”

Ian Sutcliffe, the head of housebuilder Countryside Properties, added: “The thing that business requires is policy and direction and an agenda that focuses on the country, not just Brexit. It is over two years now since we had the referendum and the corridors of Westminster have been obsessed with the Brexit issue.”

Chris Pullen, chief executive of Staffline, the UK’s biggest provider of apprentice levy training, welcomed the overhaul. “It’s good the Government recognises it’s had a slow start and is going to make it more fit for purpose.” 

Helen Brocklebank, boss of luxury goods body Walpole, added: “I find it astonishing that Philip Hammond seems to be the lone pro-business voice in the Brexit wilderness. Business is the only thing that will get us out of the fix we find ourselves in.”

Brent Hoberman, executive chairman of technology investor Founders Factory, said: “I am very much hoping they now see business and entrepreneurship is central to what the country needs. They are Tories after all.”
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