Safety fears as Starmer pledges to slash red tape for investors

Keir Starmer will promise to slash red tape and "rip out the bureaucracy that blocks investment" as he hosts hundreds of global business executives at a major summit in central London today.

- Kiran Stacey

After a troubled run-up to the event, including a bruising row with the Dubai-based owner of P&O Ferries, the prime minister will urge the world's largest businesses to invest in Britain, promising them stable policy and low regulation as an incentive to do so.

Starmer will say in his keynote speech today: "We've got to look at regulation where it is needlessly holding back the investment, to take our country forward.

"Where it is stopping us building the homes, the data centres, warehouses, grid connectors, roads, train lines, you name it, then mark my words - we will get rid of it.

"We will rip out the bureaucracy that blocks investment and we will make sure that every regulator in this country takes growth as seriously as this room does."

Some in the union movement expressed concern at the prospect of another deregulatory push, with one likening Starmer's tone to that of the former Conservative prime minister David Cameron, who swept away building safety regulations as part of a "bonfire of red tape".

Starmer is seeking to woo foreign capital as part of the government's push to get the economy growing again, and has already announced billions of pounds' worth of investment from companies including Amazon and the US investment company Blackstone. Among the speakers for today's summit at the Guildhall are Ruth Porat, the president and chief investment officer of Google's parent company, Alphabet; David Ricks, the chief executive of the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, and Larry Fink, the chief executive of BlackRock.