I’ve had enough of Brexit doom and gloom – here’s my plan to boost the economy

Britain has a proud history of being one of the best places in the world to invest. Thanks to the talent of our people, our world-leading universities, our unique and highly respected legal system, and the fact that the UK is such a brilliant, vibrant place to live, we have long been a hub for global enterprise.

My ambition is to go even further – to make Britain the best place in the world to do business. With our Brexit freedoms, we are going even further to show that Britain is open for business. And the effect is clear – investors around the world are flocking in to seize the amazing opportunities that we have to offer.

New figures released last week show that far from shrinking during the pandemic, the UK economy was actually the fastest growing major economy in Europe. The declinists and the naysayers were wrong – the economy performed well then and it is coming back stronger today.

That’s the message I’ll be taking to the G20 in India this weekend. I won’t just be working with Presidents and Prime Ministers to deepen our trade and investment links, I’ll also be meeting CEOs – because they want to hear more about what we’re doing in the UK.

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Just look at the huge new investments we’ve seen in the last few months, with Tata investing over £4 billion in a new battery gigafactory in the UK. This is testament to the strength of our manufacturing industry. It places the UK at the heart of the growing market for electric vehicles, and it will create thousands of new jobs.

Confidence in British manufacturing is growing up and down the country, from the revival of shipbuilding in Belfast, to the landmark deal between Air India, Airbus and Rolls Royce to manufacture new aircraft at Broughton in North Wales.

We are seeing a surge of investment in cutting-edge technologies. Last year the UK became only the third country in the world to build a tech sector worth over $1 trillion – with more billion-dollar tech start-ups being created here than in Germany, France and Sweden combined.

All the leading global AI labs – from Google’s Deepmind to Anthropic to OpenAI – now have offices here in the UK. Andreesen Horowitz is opening a UK office and Palantir has chosen London as its European home. And to cement the UK’s AI leadership, I’ll be bringing tech pioneers together with decision makers for the first global AI Safety Summit in November at the iconic Bletchley Park.

This growing business confidence is also clear in our life sciences sector, with companies like Moderna investing more in R&D and BioNTech signing a new partnership with the government to develop a vaccine for cancer. And it’s clear in our incredible culture sector. Over the last three years Netflix has invested over £4.5 billion in UK content and the creative industries are now growing at more than 1.5 times the rate of the wider economy.

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In all these sectors and more, we are seeing an extraordinary vote of confidence in the UK. And we will see it again at our Global Investment Summit later this year when I will be welcoming business leaders from around the world – showcasing brilliant British industries and driving billions of new job-creating investments.

Businesses can see that we’re taking the necessary steps to get inflation under control – and that the plan is beginning to work. They can see, too, that we are backing business to succeed – because we believe in the power of the private sector to create the opportunities and growth that we need.

We have already signed over 70 trade agreements, connecting us to some of the most vibrant economies around the world. By joining the huge Indo-Pacific trade bloc earlier this year – the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership – we removed barriers to trading with some of the fastest-growing economies in the world. The bloc has a combined GDP of £12 trillion – 15% of the world’s economy – and we are the only country in Europe to have this privileged access.

We are also negotiating a free trade deal with India, where a growing economy offers vast and often untapped opportunities for British businesses and consumers. I’ll be advancing those discussions with Prime Minister Modi this weekend, towards our shared ambition of doubling UK-India trade by 2030.

We are going further to reshape business regulations. We’re scrapping unnecessary EU red tape which has held back house building, constrained innovation in financial services and even hurt our thriving UK wine producers. And we’re investing in pioneering research, skills, apprenticeships and generous capital allowances – all supporting innovation and encouraging entrepreneurs to set up here.

Express readers know the potential of our nation knows no bounds. I want to build a country where everyone can look forward with optimism, confident that our children and grandchildren can have a better future with every opportunity to succeed. The first step to achieving this is unleashing businesses so that the economy can thrive – and that’s what we’re working every day to deliver.

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