Our Breakfast with the Rt Hon Chloe Smith

In September, nearly 50 members of our Business Council and Employer Taskforce packed into Old Queen Street Café for one of the liveliest and best-attended breakfasts in our series, as we welcomed the Rt Hon Chloe Smith. 

Chloe entered Parliament at 27 as the youngest MP in the House of Commons after a career in management consultancy, and over 15 years served in the Treasury and the Cabinet Office before becoming Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and then for Science, Innovation and Technology. Now President of the CIPD, which represents more than 160,000 HR professionals, she joined our Communications Director Jamie Booth to tackle one of the biggest questions facing British business today: what AI will mean for work, and for the millions of people still looking for a way in.

Chloe set out an unapologetically optimistic vision. She acknowledged the anxiety many people feel about AI and jobs, but argued that the "jobs apocalypse" story has never stood up to scrutiny, and that in a services economy like ours far more roles will be reshaped than eliminated. Getting that reshaping right will depend on strong people leadership, and she made a compelling case that HR professionals will help steer this new industrial revolution as businesses retrain staff, plan their future workforce and begin bringing AI agents into their teams.

The most striking moment came when she turned to economic inactivity. One in five working-age adults is outside the labour market altogether, because of ill health, disability, caring responsibilities or early retirement, and Chloe argued that AI could become one of the most powerful tools yet for reaching them. She pointed to Estonia, where equipping public employment advisers with AI matching tools lifted the number of people moving into work by 10%, and to UK firms using skills-based matching to cut staff attrition by a quarter. For an organisation focused on getting more people into good jobs, the prospect of technology unlocking that hidden pool of talent is genuinely exciting.

She was equally clear that much of the responsibility for seizing this moment lies with employers. CIPD data shows around 45% of British businesses are still at an ad hoc or experimental stage with AI, while the World Economic Forum estimates that 60% of the global workforce will need reskilling this decade. Her message to the room was to plan strategically now, and she noted emerging evidence that involving staff directly in using AI tools can build their confidence along the way.

Asked about polling suggesting one in six businesses expect to cut headcount because of AI, Chloe reminded the room that five in six do not, and warned against "AI washing", where job losses driven by wider cost pressures are pinned on technology. She cautioned that no firm benefits from leaving a gap at the bottom of its talent pipeline, and called for far greater agility in the education and skills system, citing new research from Steve Rigby showing businesses are four times more likely to see technology vendors as training partners than FE colleges.

Questions from the floor were as wide-ranging as they were sharp, covering the 14 to 19 curriculum, a rise in AI-generated complaints in hospitality, academic integrity in schools and how a reformed Growth and Skills Levy should balance support for young people with upskilling existing workers. Chloe closed on a theme close to our own hearts, arguing that including older workers, disabled people and young people alike makes clear business sense for any employer that wants to recruit and keep the best talent.

Closing the breakfast, our CEO Georgiana Bristol thanked Chloe and highlighted that the Jobs Foundation Pledge will launch this November in the House of Lords. The Pledge will bring businesses together to share best practice and support people facing barriers to work, putting the ideas discussed over breakfast into practice, and we would love as many of our members as possible to be part of it.