Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Committee
20 October 2026
Contents updated on 20 Oct 2026
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Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Committee Actual start House of Commons
Follow its sittings18:09 - 19:04
Speaker 1
Order, order. Welcome to today's session when I'm delighted that we're able to welcome the Secretary of State to the committee along with Amanda Brooks. Thank you very much indeed for joining us this afternoon. We are about to kick off our work plan for 2027 with our big business conference in the House of Commons on Monday, followed by a national roadshow and a big nationwide survey to understand exactly what it is that the business, trade union and consumer associations want us to have a look at over the course of 2027. So we're very pleased to be able to kick off that process by asking you about your priorities.
Welcome back to the best job in government.
Welcome back to the best committee in Parliament. You've been out for a bit. You've come back to a department that covers most of the domestic economy. Give us a sense of the kind of vision and priorities that you've brought back to the department.
19:04 - 21:05
Speaker 2
Yeah, well thank you, Chair, and it's lovely to be with you colleagues as well as being two of the last few business secretaries. I was a member of this committee as well, you might remember, in a previous guise. And thank you for that work you're kicking off, which I do think is really important. I think this is the best job in government. I think the role of this select committee is really important, Chair, within that.
I think it's maybe worth just pausing for a second to comment on the fact it is a genuinely new department. I know obviously having done the DBT job before, people might see it in that way, but this is something new, I think, for people who are aficionados of how we've structured the business department in the UK in recent years. I think the fact we have now a department of 8,500 people, annual budget of 17 billion pounds, circa 17 billion pounds a year, this is a real significant change in terms of the strength of these issues within government, and it's obviously a privilege to come back to be in charge of them. We do cover a lot, and I would say to give you our four public objectives, and I haven't spoken of these before, I'm revealing them to the committee in the proper way.
The first I would say, Chair, is to lead on place-based reindustrialisation, using the industrial strategy as the mechanism for that. The second I would say is how we make sure we have better lives and vibrant local economies that markets work for citizens, so that's everything from our work on making work pay to our SME policy to how competition law works in the UK and all the rest of the things the department does. The third I would say, and again a reference to the new department structure here, is that science, innovation, technology have got to be at the heart of growth, and we have to embrace technology to do that. And the fourth I would say, we've always had, you might remember, a commitment to an open, connected, trading economy. I would add the words secure and resilient to that as well, reflecting I think the world that we are in.
So there's a lot of things, Chair, but I think you've got to put it down into those four headings for the fundamental objectives of this department.
21:05 - 21:18
Speaker 1
And you've obviously managed to join and restructure the department just ahead of the budget.
You'll know that business is screaming about the cost of doing business. What have you asked the Chancellor to prioritize?
21:18 - 22:06
Speaker 2
I'm not going to shock you all by telling you what may or may not be in the budget or what I would want to be in. But I would say, look, Chair, at the public comments that you've just referenced of the Chancellor, the reference to the cost of doing business, the need for breathing space for business. I endorse those words entirely. I think there's got to be acknowledgement that there is no answer to all of the things we as parliamentarians, all the things our constituents want to see as priorities for the state and for the government, unless we have a strong economy, a stronger economy than we've had in actually quite a few years since the financial crisis. And I think the last set of GDP figures are very encouraging, you know, but it's sustained economic growth that will do that.
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