By Paul Kelso, business and economics correspondent
Chancellor Rachel Reeves is at the World Economic Forum in Davos meeting potential investors with a core message that, despite what they might have heard from companies already working there, Britain is open for business.
She arrived in the wake of two signals she believes demonstrate growth really is a priority, one intentional, the other convenient, if politically fraught.
The decision to effectively sack the head of the Competition and Markets Authority on Tuesday may sound dry but Ms Reeves thinks it matters. She wants regulators to be promoting growth, not slowing down the sort of mergers that might create it, which has been the criticism of the CMA in recent times.
“We have more complaints about the CMA than anyone,” a government source told Sky News. “We really are serious about regulating for growth.”
The second message concerns Heathrow’s and airport expansion more generally. The saga of a third runway at Britain’s biggest airport encapsulates, perhaps better than any, the trade-offs required to prioritise growth.
Airport expansion is a proven vehicle for growth. Heathrow’s current investors are desperate to expand, despite the cost of complications. But for a decade political opposition, from Boris Johnson to Sadiq Khan, has stood in the way.
Of course there are sound environmental reasons for not expanding, particularly for a government committed to net zero by 2050, one she can expect Ed Miliband to make. But if growth really is the priority then at some point they have to choose.
Reeves indicated that she is determined to do so. “When the last government faced a difficult decision about whether to support infrastructure the answer was always no. We can’t go on like that.”
There was sympathy for Reeves’ position from a predecessor. George Osborne spent six years as chancellor and has made the same pitch to investors she will conduct over the two days.
In Davos in his role at City advisory firm Robey Warshaw, he said she was right to be here, but warned the UK is a hard sell.
“I think she’s got a particular challenge at the moment because there’s quite a negative sentiment about the UK, which didn’t start under the Starmer government, to be fair to her, but it certainly hasn’t got better.
“I think she just needs to articulate a clear reason why all these people, who have got so many choices in the world, should put their money in the UK.”
