Now, you've just given a bit of a speech for the UK rallying the troops, scaling
up in businesses. What is your message here to the
community in Davos? Yes, simple message, actually, which is
the UK very much open for business, attracting record levels of investment.
We just saw P.W. C come out with a report this week that
says that the UK is the third most investable country in the world.
The same more bosses want to come and invest in the UK than almost anywhere
else. And that was the message I was
delivering to the Confederation of British Business, really kind of getting
across this idea that we are open for business and we want to scale up.
What kind of investment are you trying to attract?
Because a lot of the narrative I hear in the corridors is like, is the UK in a
more stable place now where 70 politically more stable?
Obviously, we went through some slightly choppier, of course, is I think it's
fair to say, but it's completely stable. Rishi Sumac has set out his top five
priorities for this year and they include growth, which is why I came to
flesh that out here in Davos. And look, you've got a country that has
one of the world's only three trillion dollar tech sectors.
There's only America, China and the United Kingdom.
So a lot of that will be in tech. Pulling together things like our amazing
university sector. But not just that culture.
Many other areas that the UK has real strengths.
And have you actually had commitment from international companies in putting
more money for 2023? And is that also thanks to cheaper
pound? Well, I think, of course, the pound to
strengthen somewhat now should be about. But I think a lot of these investments
are long term. But I've been talking to companies who
are, for example, building amazing, you know, renewable energy resources in the
UK. So the UK people won't notice people
even in the UK won't notice. But we have the world's biggest offshore
wind farm and we have the world's second biggest and third biggest.
Unfortunately, our viewers know that. But of course, Bloomberg would be all
over it. But but most people won't be aware.
And ISE. Yes, because we've been investing for
years and I've met a lot of people here who want to do even more.
So the next set of windfarms are going to be the size of seven football pitches
put together in a single turbine and 300 of the turbines next to each other.
That's real scale and that's why we're producing more renewable energy, I
think, than any other nation in Europe and certainly the world's biggest wind
farm. Are you concerned that actually labour
are slightly dominating with secure Starmer, the head of the Labour Party
and also the shadow chancellor here, trying to also attract business?
Or are they the next party for this? No, not really, for two reasons.
One. You know, we are, of course, welcome
democracy. That's good.
It spurs us all along. But, you know, in the end, myself as
business secretary and my colleague from the cabinet, Kenny, who is the trade
secretary, we are the ones in power. Right.
So we have the ability to actually do things.
Secondly, no disrespect to Sir Keir Starmer, but it's not very long ago that
he sat in Jeremy Corbyn cabinet, the extreme left wing leader of the Labour
Party, and was telling us that he believed everything that Jeremy Corbyn
stood for, and that was mainly to trash business.
So it's an incredible sort of conversion if he is here.
And I think businesses still rather wary of that.
He thinks we're hearing otherwise, actually, that he is trying to lure
business in preparation next. I'm sure he's very I'm sure he's very
convincing. He's a lawyer.
Right? By.
By trade. Right.
And he'll pick up a brief. And I'll tell you that brief.
And I'll turn to it. And he'll he'll deliver it just like any
barrister or a lawyer in his case can. And so I'm sure he's very convincing,
but I'm not sure if he was able to stand at the last election under the banner of
Jeremy Corbyn, who was content to destroy business and actually win him in
as chancellor, as chancellor, came here once called its chancellor.
They came here to Slate business, to Slate British business.
So Keir Starmer sat in that cabinet applauding.
But the are not in your favour or would it not be better that both parties
actually both main parties are pro-business?
Joel Weber. Well, look, I don't attract in fact, I'm
very, very happy and shocked to. I'm very, very happy for all of us to be
pro-business. We always have been.
We've always been. You know, I started my own printing
company 32 years ago when I was 21 years of age and probably the first business
secretary for quite some time who actually came from a business
background. You know, that's an experience I've had.
I think that it's really important that any government or governments are
pro-business, ISE course. I mean, that, you know, to be welcome.
I would just ask whose heart is really in it.
And if you look at the Inflation Reduction Act, we hear a lot of leaders
here saying what the US is doing is not fair.
Should we not do the same in the UK? So I do think that, you know, the United
States has a lot of catching up to do. 10, 12 years ago, we were investing in,
for example, those wind farms and essentially with some subsidy to get
them going. Now they fund themselves much in
actually producing some of the cheapest electricity.
We've already have plans in place to have no more petrol and diesel cars sold
in the UK by 2030, less than eight years time.
So we're already way ahead of the mark. America's catching up says much in the
Inflation Reduction Act that I welcome America really getting on with it.
On the other hand, there are one or two things there like rules of origin, which
are not just anti-competitive but protectionist.
And I know that Biden has already talked about trying to resolve this things.
I've also been speaking to my American opposite number, the Commerce Commerce
Secretary and people like John Kerry about this.
And I'm hopeful that this all gets resolved in the round.
Talk to me a little bit about bankruptcies.
You worry that once the energy support package is being taken out in the
spring, that a lot of companies will simply go bust with higher interest
rates and the world they're facing. So, first of all, we're keeping five and
a half billion pounds of business support, which is, of course, smaller
than the 18 billion pounds we've been running up to now.
I think I would keep this under close watch.
But I think it's true to say that energy prices, certainly the gas wholesale
price has come down a lot from its peak. I looked day before yesterday, it was
one hundred thirty seven pence per therm.
I can remember it if it's over 600 pence, but.
So it's come down a lot. We need to see that actually lead
through to the business bills being lower.
I've written to our our regulator Ofgem about this, as has the chancellor.
I mean, look, to ensure that the consumer or in this case the business is
actually getting those reductions. So the cost of wasted energy for poorly
insulated tube is also the main topic. Total almost 13 billion is the two years
through October of 2024. The IPR has caused the government to
bring forward nearly 6 billion pounds in energy efficiency.
A promise from 2025. Yeah, so too.
So we not we're still spending the money, which is an even larger sum,
which actually still applies up to 2025. And I do agree we have Victorian homes
by and large. They do not.
They did not do insulation. They did many things.
The Victorians, they were brilliant, but they didn't do draught exclusion
properly. But I think it's true that we've gone
from about 11 per cent of homes which are at energy performance seen above so
that the better ones to 46 per cent of British homes being in that category.
So we are actually making progress on this and we've got further to go.
I've got more that I'll be announcing and, you know, watch this space.
OK, so you'll come back on Bloomberg Daybreak.
I would love to. It took me a little bit about what kind
of ties are expecting to in the UK and the Gulf States.
Yeah. Well, I was there last week, actually,
in the Gulf. I was in Saudi Arabia and then in the
Emirates. And there's there's a huge amount of
sort of joint work going on. It's kind of interesting if you look at
what's happened through the war in Europe for us in Europe, that's meant
higher energy bills, problems we were just talking about, of course, for some
Gulf states. That has meant a lot of extra money and
that money is investable. Yes.
And they know that, you know, times are coming to an end in the next decade or
so or two, maybe for hydrocarbons. And so they want to get out and invest
elsewhere in the UK. We have four of the 10 best universities
in the world. We have a lot of the science and
technology, English, green tech. So what I was talking to them about in
Saudi Arabia in Abu Dhabi was making those investments in the UK, which they
are already in many cases doing. But the more will they buy all the
football clubs? Yeah, I did.
I was with the chairman, Manchester City, who he tells me he goes and
watches nearly all of their home matches, which is quite a commitment
from three and a half thousand kilometres away.
But do you think I mean, will there be any Premier League clubs that will be in
British? Oh, I don't know.
I look, I don't. I mean, we've met the UK does have
obviously a historic record of being one of the most open economies in the world.
And it works both ways. We own huge amounts of investments in
foreign countries. If you go to the United States, for
example, you'll find that the UK owns lots and lots of businesses there and
elsewhere. So we're quite open about that.
I think with football there is the sort of family community interest.
It's interesting to see how some owners do manage to ingratiate themselves with
their fans. Others not so much.
And we always encourage them to do that. But I'll leave the detail of that to the
experts.