Original article by Ethan Shone republished from OpenDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

Exclusive: Government is inviting lobbyists and their clients to play a major role in the deregulatory agenda

“Growth comes from business, not the government.”

That was the message a government minister delivered to hundreds of corporate lobbyists, including those representing banks, arms companies and pharmaceuticals, during a webinar this morning.

Lord Livermore, the financial secretary to the Treasury, made the comments at the online event, which was the first in a series aimed at encouraging lobbyists to play a major role in the government’s ‘growth at all costs’ agenda.

In the call, which openDemocracy attended, Livermore made clear that Number 10 sees this agenda as being driven by corporations, while the government is a secondary actor that “work[s] in partnership with business”.

Also present among the 700 attendees were lobbyists representing tech firms, energy giants and consultancies, and those working for agencies including Hanbury, Headland, Lexington, Brunswick, Cavendish and Grayling.

These people and their clients are a “huge and important part” of the government’s plans, Livermore said, stressing that ministers are “really keen to draw on… the expertise that exists within your organisations and your clients”.

He added that the government’s focus is on getting rid of “stifling regulation that has for too long held business back” and “removing barriers to growth that we, in partnership with business, identify”.

The treasury minister also discussed Great British Energy’s role in “derisking investment” and providing capital for public-private partnerships, to make renewable infrastructure investment more attractive to the market.

While the government has been unapologetic about its outreach to business as a means to drive growth, Labour’s critics say an ever-closer relationship with lobbyists only heightens the impression of a government that does not have an agenda of its own.

Speaking to openDemocracy after the call, Green Party deputy leader Zack Polanski said: “With inequality rife, the government should be listening to the people who keep our country running and those suffering, not hosting desperate mass Zoom calls with arms dealers and oil giants.”

Cutting red tape

Setting out the government’s priorities, Livermore put a particular focus on achieving major reform to the planning system to encourage more commercial and infrastructure projects, and getting rid of regulations that “stand in the way of businesses investing”.

Livermore talked up the recent ousting of the head of the competitions regulator and his replacement with a former Amazon executive as evidence that the government is taking seriously its deregulatory agenda.

He also mentioned the recent push for regulators to submit proposals for growth and said Labour’s National Wealth Fund will “help catalyse private investment into sectors where at the moment, perhaps there’s a too high degree of risk”.

“We can use the National Wealth Fund to help derisk some of those investments,” said the minister. Economists describe this process as the state stepping in to improve the private returns on infrastructure assets.

Livermore continued that the fund could be used to “guide investments, particularly into the kind of clean energy investments of the future that we want to see”.

The government-lobbyist calls are being led by a new partnerships team in No 10 fronted by James Carroll, who has previously worked for the party on external relations and business engagement.

Also on the call was a senior executive at Anacta UK, described by The Times as the “first Starmerite lobbying firm”, and a banking lobbyist who is also involved in the running of Labour in the City, a group which convenes Labour supporters who work in financial services.

Lobbyists were able to submit questions during the call. One criticised “some parts of the business community” which have been “vocally critical about the government’s handling of the economy so far,” describing it as “unhelpful”.

They then asked: “How can firms who don’t want to talk down the UK but would rather promote a more positive narrative about the many opportunities open to British businesses best work with the government to do so?”

This prompted Carroll to quip: “I promise I haven’t planted that question.”

Carroll then rounded out the call by reiterating the importance the government places on developing this relationship with lobbyists.

“Just to emphasise,” he said, “your clients [and] your expertise is critical to delivering these ambitious national missions the prime minister has set out and the chancellor reiterated this week.”

Polanski, the Green’s deputy leader, said the plans to derisk investment “amounts to privatising the rewards and socialising the risks”.

He added: “Regulation exists for a reason, Grenfell stands as a towering reminder of lives lost and the total failure of standards.

“This isn’t growth for the many, just more wealth for the super-rich while the rest of us are told to look up at their private jets and wait for the trickle down.”

Original article by Ethan Shone republished from OpenDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.