Labour will “give Britain a new business model”, Keir Starmer promises

Keir Starmer has accused the Conservatives of overseeing a “chaotic” decade in which they had failed to “seize the opportunities our country has” and promised that a Labour government would “give Britain a new business model”.

Addressing Labour’s business conference in Canary Wharf this morning, Starmer told business leaders that an incoming Labour government would have three priorities: “green growth”; “skills”; and “stability”.

“[The Tories’] sticking-plaster politics is holding us back. What I’m focused on is how Labour can remedy that historic wrong, because it’s going to be our job to tackle the long-term challenges to give Britain a new business model,” he said.

Starmer told attendees that while the climate emergency is “the defining challenge of our time”, it is also “the biggest opportunity that we’ve had in a generation to make our economy work for working people” and argued that “growth and net zero don’t just compliment each other – they’re inseparable”.

“We believe in public investment and we will provide it, but we know that the real game changer is private investment. That’s why we’re going to set up a national sovereign wealth fund,” he told the conference.

Labour set out plans to fund new green infrastructure projects – including “clean” steel plants, battery factories and ‘renewable-ready’ ports – through a ‘national wealth fund’ amounting to £8bn at its annual conference in September.

Starmer also warned this morning that to “meet our ambitions, we need to get real on skills” and that skills are “at the heart of our green prosperity plan”. He promised to reform “the way the government helps businesses to get the skills” with more flexibility on apprenticeships and “training courses that work for you”.

He added: “But look, I know for many businesses right now talk about investment or growth is not where your head is. That’s why priority number three is in many ways the most important: stability.”

The Labour leader said businesses are “counting the cost” of the “chaos” of the past 12 years, highlighting that businesses are currently facing higher energy, taxation and borrowing costs.

He told the conference “that stability is about more than the public finances”. “It’s about providing the right conditions to plan and invest, to think about long-term strategy, not short-term fixes, to create confidence through certainty. That’s why we believe in an industrial strategy” he said.

“We believe government can support business to innovate and grow, can bring in the creative genius of our scientists and universities, can unite us to tackle the country’s challenges on behalf of working people. That’s what our partnership must deliver. A partnership for prosperity, that’s what my Labour Party stands for.”

Rachel Reeves is also speaking at Labour’s business conference today. She will outline a “radical plan” to make Britain the “high-growth, start-up hub of the world” as she unveils the results of an independent review on start ups.

The review, Start Up, Scale Up, makes recommendations aimed at removing barriers to institutional investment, helping university innovations get to market and giving more independence to the government-owned British Business Bank.