At the recent general election, the UK voted overwhelmingly for an economic turnaround, to provide better public services, greater personal and business opportunity, and increase real wages. To deliver these there is no alternative to making the economy grow and perform better. The task is not easy in the face of the national debt burden, cash-starved public services and infrastructure, expensive and poorly performing privatised services, and damaged trading relations with our biggest market, Europe. Dan Tomlinson, MP for Chipping Barnet, and Keir Starmer’s ‘Growth Mission Champion,’ will lead this breakfast roundtable discussion ‘Delivering the growth mission.’ This will be a good opportunity to hear more about the government’s central economic objective and feed back practical comments and suggestions.

The Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan is possibly the most politically unstable area in the world, combining immense wealth, political tensions, religious hostilities, vast inequality, and many autocratic governments. For more than a century, its enormous fossil fuel reserves helped fuel the economies of major economies. This has led the major Western powers, in their foreign policies, to prioritise secure supplies. Although the regime change in Syria and pause in the Gaza war give some slight grounds for optimism, the area remains a tinderbox in which further conflagration could cause big problems in the area and beyond. For such reasons, we have invited Hamish Falconer MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan to lead this roundtable which will be a good opportunity for members to raise key issues that affect their own businesses.

The skills crisis is absolutely at the top of the agenda for Industry Forum members. Changes in immigration policies and inadequate education and skills training programmes are causing shortages in sectors including agriculture, healthcare, plumbing, programming and the leisure industries. This is currently hampering businesses and will be a restraint on growth. The Rt Hon Baroness (Jacqui) Smith of Malvern, Minister for Skills, will outline how the Labour government plans to tackle this issue and lead a discussion.