This week, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has chaired the first meeting of a new Business Council designed to work in partnership with government to fuel COVID-19 economic recovery and establish future growth within our economy.
The Build Back Better Council brings together a broad range of 30 business leaders from a variety of sectors across the UK economy representing industries from retail and hospitality, to finance, science and technology.
The Build Back Better Council will provide an opportunity for the 30 business leaders – some of whom are Business West members - to share their views from their industries and input into the solutions for economic recovery.
The Council will be co-chaired by the Prime Minister and Chancellor, with the Business Secretary as a standing member and other Cabinet Ministers attending as required – the Trade Secretary will join the first meeting.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, said:
“We know the best way to rebuild our economy is to beat COVID which is why we have invested billions in new vaccines and a national testing operation so that we can reopen the economy safely as soon as possible in the future.
“But despite this we – like many other countries – face a huge economic challenge. And as we recover from this crisis it won’t be enough to just go back to normal – our promise will be to Build Back Better and level up opportunity for people and businesses across the UK.
“This Build Back Better Council will ensure that government and businesses continue to work closely together. It will provide an important forum for frank feedback on our recovery plans and will help ensure the steps we are taking are the right ones.”
Backing the formation of the Business Council, Chief Executive of Bristol Chamber & Initiative at Business West James Durie comments:
“We welcome the creation of the Build Back Better Council as another way to ensure that strong sustainable economic recovery, and the route for government to best support this, is at forefront of its thinking and its policies.
“As part of the British Chambers of Commerce we at Business West have been working alongside the other four main business organisations since the start of the pandemic in March 2020 to set out the support that business of all sizes have needed government to make available. Again and again, we have successfully escalated issues to ensure support has been put in place. Now is absolutely not the time for government to stop its support for businesses impacted.
“We are delighted to see many of our members at Business West Chamber and Initiative are involved as members of the Council and we will continue to work in partnership nationally with the British Chambers of Commerce alongside this Council from across Industry to ensure that we are feeding in what we are hearing from local businesses in real time, and that clean inclusive growth is at the heart of economic recovery.”
The Build Back Better Council will meet quarterly and each member is appointed to the council for a term of 12 months and these members include:
•Isabel Dedring, Arup
•Leo Quinn, Balfour Beatty
•Stephen Welton, BGF
•Rachel Lord, Blackrock
•Bernard Looney, BP
•Sean Doyle, British Airways
•Philip Jansen, BT
•Poppy Gustafsson, Darktrace
•Penny James, Direct Line
•Ronan Harris, Google
•Emma Walmsley, GSK
•Lord Deighton, Heathrow
•Mark Tucker, HSBC
•Dame Carolyn McCall, ITV
•Thierry Bolloré, Jaguar Land Rover
•Dame Sharon White, John Lewis Partnership
•Robert MacLeod, Johnson Matthey
•Cressida Hogg, Landsec
•Nigel Wilson, Legal & General
•Vivian Hunt, McKinsey & the CBI
•Ron Kalifa, Network International
•Karen Jones, Prezzo
•Laxman Narasimhan, Reckitt Benckiser
•Liv Garfield, Severn Trent
•Carl Ennis, Siemens
•Martin Murphy, Syncona
•Ken Murphy, Tesco
•Alan Jope, Unilever
•Charlotte Hogg, Visa
•Sir Ian Wood, Wood
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