Rishi Sunak

Together Stronger #G20

An honour to join His Majesty The King and people from across the country as we commemorate the ultimate sacrifice paid by those who fought for this country. 

Every month I update LinkedIn on how I’ve been working to back #britishbusiness. Here are my March highlights 👇 
 
✅ March is the month of the (Tech) Unicorn and today we’ve got one more – after another successful round of funding British software start-up Quantexa became our newest tech unicorn just this morning.  
 
Congratulations! 
 
The UK is already home to 45 other tech unicorns, which is more than France, Germany and Sweden combined. 
 
Here are just a few of the things these businesses are doing to bring jobs, investment and growth to the UK economy:  
 
BrewDog – a multi-national brewery and pub chain that has seen enormous success over the last 15 years, operating in 78 countries worldwide 
 
Graphcore – a semiconductor company that develops accelerators for AI, who in their latest fundraising in December 2020 valued at 5 billion, making it one of the UK’s most valuable tech companies 
 
Checkout.com – a global provider of payment solutions recently valued at $40 billion, one of the biggest unicorns in Europe 
 
✅ Celebrating female entrepreneurship on International Women’s Day  
 
Some of our most brilliant businesses are led by brilliant women. We celebrated them for International Women’s Day, including small businesses Luminary Bakery, BEPPS Snacks and BAG&BONES.  
 
I know from watching my mum running our family pharmacy the huge sacrifices that are made and the phenomenal work that goes into running a business. As Prime Minister I will always champion the transformative power of women in business. 
 
✅ Providing a plan for growth in the Spring Budget 
 
In the Budget, the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt tackled two of the biggest barriers that stop businesses growing – investment incentives and labour supply, providing a £27 billion tax cut for businesses to help drive investment and growth.  
 
From 30 free hours childcare for eligible working parents of children between nine and 36 months, to increased nursery funding, the Budget will also boost our labour supply and productivity by allowing thousands of working parents to come back into the workforce. Good news for parents. Good news for business. 
 
April marks the start of a new month but also a new financial year. I’m more determined than ever to deliver on my priorities that give British businesses peace of mind, by: 
 
📉 halving inflation 
 
⬇ reducing debt 
 
📈 growing the economy 

The NHS faces real pressures.

That’s why we’re investing in the technologies and medicines of the future to address some of the biggest public health challenges facing our country.

Good to meet Steve Barclay, Grant Shapps, Will Quince and leaders from the health sector at the Life Sciences Council yesterday, to discuss how the funding will ensure UK patients are the first to benefit from medical breakthroughs.

https://lnkd.in/eVYkQcmj

Is there anything you’ve ever wanted to ask me? Well, now’s your chance.
 
On 24 April I’ll be answering questions from the business community – live - right here on LinkedIn.

One of my top priorities as Prime Minister is to grow the economy. And you - the British businesses, entrepreneurs, innovators and young people inventing the future - are at the heart of that.

Click to join below and drop a question in the comments section - I’ll try get through as many as I can. See you then.
 
#businessconnect #economy #innovation #creativity #technology #entrepreneurs #linkedinlive #socialmedia

Good morning from This Morning.

Two years ago today the UK made a decision we should all be proud of. 

To help the people of Hong Kong, who we share deep ties with.
 
On the 2-year anniversary of the HK BNO visa, I’m pleased to see how our proud tradition of opening our hearts to people like Yuwing can make a real difference.

UK Home Office

There is undoubtedly a complex moral dimension to illegal immigration. We must balance our duty to support people in need, with the responsibility to have genuine control of our borders.

The basis of any solution shouldn’t just be what works, but what is right. That is why I am introducing new measures to tackle illegal immigration today.

1/ We are announcing a new deal with Albania to speed up the return of Albanian asylum seekers, who make up a third of those arriving to the UK by small boats.

2/ We are introducing a new, unified Small Boats Command Centre, to step up how we police the channel.

This will bring together our military and civilian capabilities in a coordinated response to intelligence, channel boat crossing, processing and enforcement.

3/ We’re doubling funding for the National Crime Agency to tackle immigration crime in Europe.

We’re also adding 200 new staff to step up our immigration enforcement. These extra resources in turn will allow us to increase raids on illegal working by 50%.

4/ We are moving up to 10,000 people out of expensive hotel accommodation into low-cost sites like disused holiday parks and former student halls.

5/ We are doubling the number of caseworkers and radically streamlining the asylum process.

As a result of all these changes, we will triple staff productivity.

I expect to abolish the backlog of initial asylum decisions by the end of next year.

📝 Read my full statement: https://lnkd.in/eD5zsAcD

Have you ever received a suspicious phone call, text or email?  
 
40% of all crime in England and Wales is now classed as consumer fraud and it costs the UK nearly £7 billion a year. 
 
That’s why we’re bringing in measures to protect the public from fraudsters.  
 
📵 We’re stopping scams at the source 
 
Banning SIM farms which allow thousands of scam texts to be sent in one go.

Working with Ofcom to stop spoof calls, which trick people into thinking they’re speaking to legitimate businesses.

Banning cold calls on all financial products.
️ 
✊We will empower people to better protect themselves 
 
Investing £30 million in a state-of-the-art reporting centre.

Working with social media companies to introduce one-click fraud reporting.

Offering tailored support to victims in England and Wales through the National Economic Crime Victim Care Unit.
 
⚖️ We’ll bring more fraudsters to justice 
 
Launching a National Fraud Squad, led by the National Crime Agency and the City Police, with over 400 new officers.

Using the UK’s intelligence community to identify and disrupt fraudsters overseas.

Delaying payments where banks suspect fraud.
 
Our plan will help protect you and your loved ones from these scams and clamp down on the predators who perpetrate them. The time has come to put the scammers out of business. And that’s what I’m determined to do. 
 
Read full details of the plan here: https://lnkd.in/dZiCbbQZ

I began this year by promising the British people I was going to change the way this country works. But we can only do that if we change the way our system works.  
 
That’s why yesterday, we did just that.  
 
We’ve seen the impact of Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine has had on prices. We know the importance of ensuring we have a greener, cleaner energy supply for the future. It’s because of this that we have created the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. This department will focus on giving the UK cheaper, cleaner, more secure sources of energy – cutting bills, cutting emissions, and cutting our dependence on international energy supplies, like those of Putin’s Russia.   
 
But we also need to think ahead, securing the technology and jobs of the future that will grow our economy. The newly created Department for Science, Innovation and Technology will do just that –  making sure the UK is the country where the next great scientific discoveries are made. We want the this country to be the place where the brightest minds and the most ambitious entrepreneurs will turn ideas into companies, products, and services that can change the world.  
 
Nowhere can you find more dynamism, more innovation, than in business. The Department for Business and Trade – the single, coherent voice for business inside government will give focus to growing the economy with better regulation, new trade deals abroad, and a renewed culture of enterprise at home.    
 
Talking of culture, we’re refocusing the new Department for Culture, Media and Sport – ensuring it is at the very heart of supporting and celebrating the immeasurable richness those sectors bring to our national life – this year, and every year.  
 
That’s the future: Greater focus, dedicated leadership, and better-targeted resources will drive forward work to halve inflation, ease the cost of living, transform our public services and create growth and opportunity through innovation. 
 
We’re focused on delivering for you.

LinkedIn, Ukraine needs you ⬇
 
November 2022. I was in Kyiv, in a converted office block in the city meeting tech experts – civilian and military – who were working together to find new ways to bolster the country’s defences in the midst of the Russian onslaught. 
  
They were networking mobile phones, so that people across Ukraine could download an app which would allow their phone to pick up the sound of Shahed Drones and feed back the location, so that Ukrainian air defence could track them and shoot them down. 
  
The experience showed me first hand the spirit of strength and defiance that characterises the Ukrainian people, but also their ingenuity. In the face of Russian aggression, they were fighting back – with innovation.  
  
This shouldn’t be surprising. Ukraine is a a startup nation which has helped spark names like PayPal, WhatsApp and Revolut. Their tech sector even had a record year in 2022.  
 
But we should be under no illusion about the scale of the challenge at hand. If Ukraine is to win a lasting peace, we need to bring to bear a partnership of governments, international finance and business leaders to drive the recovery and reconstruction. 
  
And that is what the UK is doing. Today at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in London we are launching the Ukraine Business Compact for you to pledge your support for Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction.  
  
More than 400 businesses worth over $1 trillion from 38 countries have already signed up – including Virgin, Sanofi, Philips, Hyundai Motor Group and Citi. 
  
For our part, the British government will provide loan guarantees worth $3 billion, unlocking World Bank lending, as well as launching the London Conference Framework for War Risk insurance. This is a huge step forward towards helping insurers to underwrite investments into Ukraine – giving investors the confidence they need to act.  
  
As we’ve seen in Bakhmut and Mariupol, what Russia cannot take it will seek to destroy. They want to do the same with Ukraine’s economy. 
  
We will not let them.  
  
We’ll stand with Ukraine as they strive to win the peace and harness all their ingenuity to build the future that they deserve. 
 

Great British ideas and the people behind them have driven growth and investment in our country for centuries.

Next week will be no different, as we host the second Global Investment Summit at Hampton Court. It’s a venue that has played host to many great moments in our history, but when we meet next week our focus will be firmly on the future. 

It’s a future that is increasingly being shaped by British innovation. At the world’s first AI safety summit last month we showed how this country is leading the charge in understanding the risks of tech that could fundamentally change how we live and work. 

From our outstanding life sciences sector to our unstoppable creative industries, the attractiveness of the UK as a place to do business is second to none. 

Don’t just take my word for it – CEOs themselves have ranked the UK as the most attractive location for investment in Europe.  

The first Global Investment Summit in 2021 brought together over 170 CEOs from across the world to secure £9.7 billion of investment in a single day. Subsequently this investment has driven growth in sectors spanning from hydrogen energy to carbon capture and storage. 

In short, investment is good for everyone and a core part of how we will grow the economy for the long term. In the last financial year alone, foreign investment projects created 80,000 new jobs.  

Next week I want us to go one further, showcasing the very best of Britain and securing a record investment that will build a better future for people across the country. 

Business leaders of the world, I look forward to seeing you there.

Great news for the UK’s TV & Film industry which will support thousands of jobs.

Our #PlanForJobs is working and we’ve backed the sector with a £2bn Culture Recovery Fund, Restart insurance for TV, film and events as well as new flexi-apprenticeships.

Now that we’ve reached our target to halve inflation and our growth is stronger, we can begin the next phase, and turn our attention to cutting tax. 
 
Yesterday Jeremy Hunt delivered his Autumn Statement for growth, backing businesses and rewarding workers.
 
Here’s five things you need to know 👇

Channelling that Headingley 2019 spirit.

Another packed weekend meeting members in London and the South East.

Every vote counts so be sure to use yours this week. If you can't vote you can still help out via Ready4Rishi.com.

I’d rather be in a position where I’ve lost this having been honest with people than win it on a false promise.

That’s who I am.

We need to grapple with inflation and protect vulnerable people, those are my priorities and I believe they’re the right priorities for the country right now.

Listen to a clip below from my interview on BBC Radio 2 today.

“For anyone to stand here and pretend it’s easy to make inflation go away for people isn’t being honest with you.”

Rishi Sunak tells #C4LeaderDebate why he targeted support to the most vulnerable people.

Sign up: http://Ready4Rishi.com #Ready4Rishi

A lot of people are concerned about fraud in our Covid support measures and they’re absolutely right to be 👇

No, I’m not ignoring it, and I'm definitely not ‘writing fraud off’.

Clearly criminals have sought to exploit our support schemes. We’re going to do everything we can to get that money back and go after those who took advantage of the pandemic.

We've invested over £100m in a Taxpayer Protection Taskforce with 1,265 staff to combat fraud. That's one of the largest and quickest responses to a fraud risk by HMRC ever. 13,000 one-to-one enquiries were opened in 2020/21 and HMRC wrote to 75,000 people.

The vast majority of people did the right thing but we are still addressing incorrect claims.

Last year we stopped or recovered nearly £2.2 billion in potential fraud from Bounce Back Loans and £743m of overclaimed furlough grants.

It’s worth also remembering the context at the time.
Businesses on the brink of collapse needed support quickly, something that many, including Labour, were calling for. We delivered that support in record time with Furlough and our loan schemes saving thousands of jobs.

Some pointing at covid fraud now are the same people who insisted, at the time, support should not be means-tested at all. Thanks to the action we took we’re now seeing a thriving labour market and the economy has now grown above pre-pandemic levels, faster than predicted. #covid #economy #jobs

I recently visited Wayve in London to see first-hand how British innovation is pushing the boundaries of AI and autonomous driving.

Alex Kendall and his team are building what they describe as an “AI driver,” software that learns to drive more like a human, by training on vast amounts of real-world video and experience rather than relying on hand-coded rules. It’s a bold approach and sparked two thoughts in particular.

First, how AI like this will be adopted in practice. Whether it’s improved transport efficiency, safety, or accessibility, the economic opportunity from technologies like Wayve’s will depend on how quickly yet carefully they are deployed at scale; in fleets, in cities and, eventually, in everyday vehicles. That means working with regulators, insurers and the public to build trust and design the right frameworks.

Second, the importance of building, scaling and retaining this kind of capability in Britain. Wayve is a great example of what happens when world-class research, engineering and entrepreneurship come together: deep tech that was born in Cambridge, now headquartered in London, attracting international capital and talent while still testing its systems on British roads.

The UK has a real opportunity to lead not just in AI research, but in AI applied to real-world problems. Companies like Wayve show what’s possible when we back that ambition.

It’s great to see that our plan to ensure we’re world leaders in green finance is working.

We’ve raised £10bn so far with our Green Gilt, with more to come, and are ensuring investors can make more environmentally-led decisions – helping to create a greener financial system.

We need to build more homes.  
 
It’s not right that thousands of homes aren’t being built because of hangover EU laws – despite those homes having already been approved. 
  
Thousands of houses have been affected by these ‘nutrient neutrality’ laws, increasing the cost and time it takes to build.   
  
Today, I’m putting an end to it. 
  
By removing the red tape, we’ll free up over 100,000 new homes, many of which already have planning permission in their local communities.  
 
Alongside these changes to development, we're introducing new environmental measures that will step up action to tackle pollution at the source and restore habitats.  
 
So this new approach means local communities get the homes they want whilst protecting our environment. 
 
I’m committed to building more homes where it makes sense to help grow the economy. 
 
Government has already delivered more than 2.2 million homes since 2010. And this plan goes even further.

Today is Yorkshire Day.

I couldn’t be prouder to have the support of my Richmond constituency and, in particular, the backing of my friend, mentor and one of Yorkshire’s greatest statesmen.

Watch a message from William Hague below 👇

When we first launched the Plan For Jobs people said it wouldn't work.

That it wasn't enough. That it was too little, too late.

Of course I was worried, throughout the pandemic the thing that had always worried me most was jobs. And so, when I launched the Plan For Jobs, the day before this headline, I made a simple promise; that no one will be left without hope.

That plan had a clear goal: to protect, support and create jobs. I couldn't be happier to say that yesterday's labour market stats show that, despite the predictions, the plan has worked.

The stats are the first we've had since furlough ended, and what they tell us is that unemployment has consistently and continuously fallen for nine months in a row now, and record numbers of people are in work, in fact more than when the pandemic hit.

I'm particularly proud that we also announced that 100,000 young people have now started a job through our Kickstart scheme. That makes the scheme one of the fastest job creation programmes we've ever delivered.

There's still work to be done but for now I'm pleased that we can say that we had a plan, we stuck to it and it worked.

#jobs #job #work #people #economy #economicrecovery #labourmarket #pandemic

There is nothing more Conservative than our precious Union, and everything great that we have achieved we have done so as one family.

Watch the latest 'Rishi on the Road' from Scotland and Northern Ireland below.

One of the most common suggestions I heard in Downing Street was that I should "just settle” with the doctors and end the strikes.

But I rejected this advice. Why? Because agreeing to big, inflationary pay rises without changing how the NHS works would have meant higher spending, higher taxes and no improvement in productivity or outcomes.

We are now seeing that play out. After a very large pay award, doctors are striking again for more - at one of the most difficult moments in the year for the NHS.

Coming from a medical family, I have huge respect for what doctors do and sympathy for the complaints of resident doctors about the disrespect with which the system too often treats them. But are we getting enough bang for our buck, and are we using doctors’ talents in the best way?

My view is that reform has to focus on better management so clinicians are not doing admin all day; real patient choice and payment by results so money follows success; and serious prevention on smoking, obesity and missed appointments, so demand is lower and capacity is used properly.

An unreformed NHS will be an unaffordable NHS and one that won’t give patients the service they deserve.

I set this out in more detail in my Sunday Times column today: https://lnkd.in/e7AGP32n

⏪ Rewind to July 2020.  
 
Some of this country’s world-class TV and screen productions were struggling to get Covid-related insurance. 
 
It was putting thousands of jobs at risk, and the future of the industry was in question.
 
We simply had to act.
 
So we launched the Film and TV Production Restart Scheme.  
 
Under the scheme, production companies were protected with insurance cover in the event of new restrictions or outbreaks on set amongst cast and crew.  
 
Today, an independent report shows that our intervention paid off – many times over.  
 
Productions using the scheme created 63,500 crew positions, plus a further 37,100 cast roles – meaning a total of 100,700 production industry workers were given a lifeline through the scheme. 
 
The scheme created 48,500 full time jobs.
 
The financial benefits of the scheme were 115 times greater than the cost of delivery.  
 
As we grow our economy, I want you to know I will continue to back the #creative industries and talent in this country who do so much to drive growth, create jobs and keep all of us entertained.  
 
More: https://lnkd.in/eVusamMv 
 
#Culture #Arts #tvproduction #film

“I have campaigned with literally thousands of candidates. I have mentored dozens. It was soon apparent that this one was the most assiduous and effective I had ever known.“

Brilliant article by William Hague in today's Times.

Read it below and sign up at: Ready4Rishi.com

https://lnkd.in/eUnaPh6Z

Many criminals convicted of sexual violence are repeat offenders.

Once is enough.

If I become Prime Minister, I will impose tougher sentences for gang members and greater post-incarceration monitoring and control.

It's time to put the interests of victims above those of perpetrators.

Read my article in the Mail below and sign up at Ready4Rishi.com

https://lnkd.in/ehzaaWxb

Our country faces real challenges and I want to be straight with you about what is going to be required to fix those.

Watch last night's The Telegraph hustings in Cheltenham here: https://lnkd.in/ePnr-nWq

Sign up: Ready4Rishi.com

Donald Trump’s latest concession to an autocratic power has barely made headlines, but it could shape the 21st century as much as anything he decides on Ukraine.

On Monday he overturned a policy he pioneered in his first term and allowed Nvidia to sell its H200 chip to China. It isn’t Nvidia’s very latest chip, but it is six times more powerful than the best chip that could previously be exported to Beijing, and better than anything Chinese firms are expected to produce in the next two years.

This matters because compute power is the single most important bottleneck in developing advanced AI. Export controls were working. Since they were introduced, the US share of global computing power has risen sharply, while China’s has almost halved. Loosening them gives Beijing a chance to catch up and then overtake.

A world that runs on Chinese technology has profound implications for security, privacy and our values, especially when Chinese AI systems already refuse to answer honestly about Tiananmen Square or the persecution of Uighurs in Xinjiang.

In my Sunday Times column today, I argue that we risk repeating the mistake we made over China’s entry into the WTO, believing that we can bind China into our system when its real aim is dominance over it: https://lnkd.in/exNaUdfk

Reconnecting with Forrest Li in Singapore took me back to our time as students at Stanford. Back then we were talking in coffee shops about what the future might look like; this time we were on stage together at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum trying to shape it.

What I’ve always admired about Forrest is that he approaches technology from the ground up. On our panel he described how Sea is using AI to support small sellers, many of whom have never been trained to write product descriptions or to produce professional photos and videos. By building simple AI tools into their platform, those sellers can generate better images, short clips and review summaries, and present their products more clearly. That is diffusion in action: powerful technology made genuinely useful for individuals and small businesses.

Governments have a critical role in creating the conditions for companies like Sea to innovate swiftly, safely and at scale. That means being pro-innovation in their approach to regulation so we don’t smother new ideas, while also investing in AI security so people can trust the tools and systems being deployed. When I was Prime Minister, that combination led to the AI Safety Summit and the creation of the AI Security Institute, giving government the technical capability to evaluate risks in partnership with frontier labs.

We also talked about what AI can do to improve public services to help citizens in the same way. One example I mentioned was prostate cancer screening in the UK, where new AI tools that read MRI scans quickly and accurately make a targeted screening programme far more feasible. That is the kind of practical use case people care about.

Three years after ChatGPT launched, we are still in the foothills of this technology. The underlying models will improve rapidly. The real test now is how quickly we can spread the benefits throughout our economies and societies while keeping the best of our human judgement at the centre.

Conversations like the one with Forrest are a reminder of what is possible when policy and entrepreneurship pull in the same direction.