This weekend, Sir Keir Starmer marks his first 100 days in 10 Downing Street – with the hope of better days to come. The Prime Minister is trying to put a rough first three months behind him with a shake-up of his Downing Street team and a series of events aimed at showing the government is focussed on its mission. One such event is the government’s investment summit which is due to take place on Monday. Labour promised to hold an investment summit in their first 100 days during the election campaign. The idea was that they could pitch the UK as a port of stability for investment, riding on a post-election high.
However, the mood music is rather more downbeat than they had hoped. This evening, Sky News reports that the event has been dealt a major blow after DP World, the ports and logistics giant, pulled a scheduled announcement of a £1 billion investment which was meant to be the centrepiece of the event. The reason? That investment in its London Gateway container is now reported to be under review following criticism of its subsidiary company P&O Ferries by two senior members of the government. On Wednesday, the Transport Secretary Louise Haigh announced new legislation to protect seafarers following P&O’s controversial decision to sack 800 British seafarers in 2022. In a joint press release with Angela Rayner, the pair described P&O’s actions as ‘outrageous’ and a ‘national scandal’. In an interview, Haigh went further and suggested the public boycott the company.
Now DP World’s chairman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem will not even travel to London for the summit. It comes amid wider complaints about the summit. As I reported in the magazine this week, worries about the Budget mean that the event is proving rather tricky. ‘It doesn’t make sense to do it before the Budget,’ says one attendee. Business will want answers to questions on tax that the government will not be able to give. The mood among attendees has not been helped by the fact that an email was sent to them with their contact details in full view. ‘They didn’t BCC anyone, it’s amateur hour,’ says a recipient.
There is a sense now in government that it could have been better to delay the event until after Reeves’s big fiscal event. The Financial Times has reported that some CEOs have doubts about whether the summit is worth the trip. It comes after there were complaints from attendees at Labour party conference over the party’s business day. It may well be that Starmer and Rachel Reeves find a way to put the summit on a better note between now and Monday, with an equally good investment announcement to boot. But the complaints so far point to the hard task Starmer faces putting his government on a smoother footing after months of difficulty. Government figures are already worried that the rhetoric of recent weeks is hurting investor confidence. They can’t afford for the problem to get any worse.