The Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak has unveiled £29.5 billion of new investment for thriving UK sectors, as the world’s A-list CEOs and investors arrive at the Global Investment Summit at Hampton Court Palace.
According to the statement released from the office of the PM on Monday stated that the summit marks a huge step forward for levelling up, with more than 12,000 jobs being created from just some of today’s investments.
This follows the government’s new £4.5 billion Advanced Manufacturing Plan, a £2 billion investment from Nissan which will secure thousands of jobs in Sunderland, and a new Investment Zone in the North East which will create 4,000 jobs.
Backing some of the fastest growing and most innovative sectors in the UK, the transformative investments have been secured for projects in tech, life sciences, infrastructure, housing and renewable energy – creating thousands of new jobs and driving growth across the country.
It was disclosed that nearly 26,000 jobs were created last year alone in the North West and North East from inward investment projects, with over 7,000 in Yorkshire and The Humber and 11,000 in the Midlands.
The summit will be opened by the Prime Minister and Business & Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch, with notable CEOs in attendance including Stephen Schwarzman from Blackstone, Amanda Blanc at Aviva, David Soloman from Goldman Sachs and Jamie Dimon at JP Morgan Chase.
In his reaction, the PM said, “Today’s investments, worth more than £29 billion, will create thousands of new jobs and are a huge vote of confidence in the future of the UK economy. Global CEOs are right to back Britain – we are making this the best place in the world to invest and do business”.
He added that, “From giving businesses the biggest tax cut in recent history last week, to our culture of innovation and thriving universities producing some of the finest minds in the world, ours is truly a nation of opportunity”.
Sunak noted that attracting global investment is at the heart of his plan for growing the economy adding that with new funding pouring into key industries like clean energy, life sciences, advanced technology, inward investment is creating high-quality new jobs and driving growth right across the country.
Meanwhile, the new wave of investments come after the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt unveiled the biggest business tax cut in modern history at last week’s Autumn Statement with a permanent extension of capital allowances, £4.3 billion of business rates support and a £7 billion Growth Fund.
It was also confirmed that Freeport tax reliefs would be extended from five to 10 years, with new government data confirming that UK freeports have attracted nearly £2.9 billion of investment in just two years, creating 6,000 jobs.
In a huge boost for Net Zero and the UK’s world-leading renewables sector, Iberdrola have confirmed £7 billion of investment as part of a total £12 billion programme for 2024-28, with North Star, owned by Partners Group in Switzerland, also committing £500 million and 400 new jobs to offshore wind infrastructure.
Fellow portfolio company Gren has also recently acquired a network of waste and biomass assets, which play a key role in baseload energy production and reducing waste to landfill.
The company plans to invest up to £1 billion in district heating and local energy systems that will deliver affordable green energy to over 200,000 homes and thousands of businesses in the UK, with sites among others in Wick, Sheffield and Nottingham.
The lucrative projects come on the back of a huge spike in inward investment for renewables in the UK, rising from £19 billion in 2021 to £55 billion in 2022, with 11,500 jobs being created in the industry last year alone.
The summit will also see billions for the UK’s burgeoning tech sector, which already attracts the highest levels of investment in Europe and last year became the third in the world to be worth $1 trillion.
Following the success of the UK Government’s first-ever AI safety summit, Microsoft has pledged £2.5 billion to build critical AI infrastructure, bringing more next-generation AI datacentres, thousands of graphic processing units to the UK.
This will boost the UK’s AI Superpower status, which generated over £10 billion of revenue from AI companies last year.
Also, the UK’s R&D scene will also see a £1 billion investment from the Ellison Institute of Technology into their recently announced Oxford Campus, bringing together global innovative thinkers through a new inter- disciplinary research and development facility to help solve some of the world’s biggest challenges.