Our breakfast with Lord Mendelsohn and Lord Harrington

This series of meetings began with a bang: we had a full house around the table, and two fantastic guest speakers in Lord Mendelsohn, a former business spokesperson for Labour in the House of Lords, and Lord Harrington, a Conservative Peer who was the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Industry under Theresa May. 
 
The topic for the breakfast was “What to expect for business and politics for 2024”. The meeting was chaired by our CEO, Georgiana Bristol, and was a great example of The Jobs Foundation’s dedication to cross-party discussion some of the key issues that impact businesses.  
 

Lord Mendelsohn posited that while it will be a tricky landscape for businesses throughout the year, they should expect things to take a turn for a better in 2025 under a pro-business Labour Leader who is expected to become Prime Minister before year’s end. Lord Harrington said that in the unlikely event of a Labour general election victory (wink, wink), it will be interesting to see just how pro-business Labour turn out to be in government and what that looks like in practice. We also had a range of insightful questions from our guests, with discussion points ranging from how we can improve the UK’s sluggish productivity growth, how political structures can be reformed to encourage inwards investment, and
how attitudes towards our education system impact the UK’s workforce skills gap. 
 
At the next event in our breakfast series, we will host Andy Silvester, Editor of City AM, to discuss what we can expect from the upcoming Spring Budget, how Labour is working with the City to develop its policy platform for government, and whether the voice and interests of business will be heard as we enter a busy General Election year.