Kwarteng axes star-studded council with hint at BEIS rebranding

Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, is axing a star-studded committee of business leaders appointed to advise on the government’s progress in delivering its industrial strategy just two-and-a-half years ago.

Sky News has learnt that Mr Kwarteng, who took over from Alok Sharma earlier this year, notified the 16 members of the Industrial Strategy Council on Wednesday that their services were no longer required.

He said the government had “decided to mark a departure from the Industrial Strategy brand”, implying that the department he runs – Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy – is likely to face yet another renaming in the coming months.

The Industrial Strategy Council, which was launched in November 2018 by Greg Clark, the then business secretary, is chaired by Andy Haldane, the Bank of England’s chief economist.

Its members include Vivian Hunt, who runs McKinsey’s UK operations, Sir Charlie Mayfield, former chair of the John Lewis Partnership, and Lady Mendelsohn, Facebook’s vice-president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

In a letter to the council’s members, seen by Sky News, Mr Kwarteng said this week’s publication of the government’s new ‘plan for growth’ had prompted to disband the council from next month.

“As I’m sure you can appreciate, the United Kingdom is in a completely different economic situation now than it was in 2017,” his letter said.

“We have left the European Union with an ambitious free trade agreement and legislated to reach Net Zero emissions by 2050, and we are working to recover from the devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It is therefore right that we look again at our long-term plan to drive jobs and economic growth across the UK, drawing on the valuable lessons we have learnt from the 2017 Industrial Strategy.”

Mr Kwarteng asked the Council to provide its annual report to him prior to its abolition next month.

The move to scrap the Council is consistent with a report in the Financial Times last month that a new industrial strategy document had been abandoned, but the decision to suddenly dispense with the advice of more than a dozen senior figures in business, academia and civil society is nevertheless surprising.

Among the Industrial Strategy Council’s other members are Dame Jayne-Anne Gadhia, the former Virgin Money chief executive; Rupert Harrison, George Osborne’s chief economic adviser while he was chancellor; Archie Norman, the Marks & Spencer chairman; Juergen Maier, the former Siemens UK boss; Paul Marshall, co-founder of the hedge fund manager Marsahll Wace; and Hayley Parsons, founder of the price comparison website Go Compare.

Mr Kwarteng said he wanted to “reassure you and the Council that the government is, and will continue to be, a champion of the needs of business and industry as we build back better from the pandemic.”

The Council’s abolition may provoke particular alarm among manufacturing sectors, which were the centrepiece of the industrial strategy championed by Theresa May in 2017.

Relations between Downing Street and the business community have begun to thaw after becoming intensely strained over Brexit.

Boris Johnson recently launched his own council of business advisers as he seeks to highlight the work of his levelling-up strategy.

A BEIS spokesman said: “The government is, and will continue to be, a champion of the needs of business and industry as we build back better from the pandemic.

“We will be laying out our plans to drive growth, support jobs and level up across the UK in the Budget and in the coming months.”

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