 Royal Highnesses, Excellencies, Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen. Welcome to Global Investment Summit 2023. Before we start, please note there are no plan drills, so all alarms and announcements are to be followed. In the unlikely event that we need to evacuate the building, please follow the instructions given by our stewards. If there is anyone who needs assistance in an emergency, please make yourself known to a member of staff. Finally, can we ask you to turn your mobile devices to silent? Thank you. It is precious. We've all given it, but how we use it is the question. Let's show you what the United Kingdom does with our time. Some use it on inventions that have shaped the world we live in, like the man who wanted to create an information management system accessible to all. You might know it as the World Wide Web, which is where millions saw this icon go viral. I mean, he is adorable, right? That's good. We're entertaining the whole world. This is a place where we are breaking boundaries in all competitions. A new door for winning this football and scoring more goals than ever before. That's 2.85 goals every 90 minutes. That's a lot of cheer. We're creating new worlds. We're creating new worlds. In a place where our imaginations have no limits, we're creating the world of the future, where robots can save lives. Engineers are making 3D printers to make multi-grip bionic arms. It takes 48 hours to craft a single badge and a fraction of a second for it to pass you by. We'll even no stone unturned, or, should I say, no strawberry unpicked, giving new energy to the world. Some are using their time to break world records. That's 1.8 seconds to change tires to be precise. We are commanding the skies and launching into outer space. 44 years in the making. For a moment, looking back at home, trust him when he says it's worth it. It takes months to write an award-winning thesis and years to develop the next generation of inventors. That's unrivaled talent-finding solutions that will change the world. With unparalleled infrastructure and unique investment propositions, sectors of the future like AI, life sciences, quantum, and tech... In fact, we're number one in Europe for tech, venture capital, and unicorns. This is where the past, present, and future unite. Today we're quite productive. How are you spending yours? It's not about how you spend your time. It's about how you invest in it. 2023, I'm Kamala Ahmed. I'm the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the news movement. And it is wonderful to be here, bringing together global capital, UK-based capital, global businesses, UK-based businesses, and policy makers. Welcome, everybody, to the Palace of Hampson Court, one of Britain's finest brands lived here, Henry VIII. Now, Henry VIII knew a bit about investment. He was the man who built the Royal Dockyards, 15 or so miles downriver from here to the east of London, still in use today. He was the inventor of the modern Royal Navy. We had a little bit of beef with Europe in those days, so nothing too much has changed, maybe, although not quite as militaristic as a few centuries ago. But we also know that looking after investment is really important. Henry VIII became known as Coppernose towards the end of his reign because he didn't look after the public finances and to try and control the amount of expenditure. He brought down the level of silver in the coinage that was produced by the Royal Mint. Such was the weakness of the silver pattern on coins that it rubbed off and Copper showed through, first of all, on his nose. So in the end, to make the right kind of investments for the prosperity of a country, you need to make the right types of decisions. Why does this matter? Because without capital, without business, and without the right policy environment, none of us can work at making the world a better place. I co-founded the news movement two and a half years ago with William Lewis, my co-founder, Sir William Lewis, my co-founder, and without investors at the beginning of that journey, we could not have started to build our business, to reimagine journalism for the next generation of consumers from the UK. We now have offices in New York. We now provide jobs for 65 people. We know that journalism is a great export from the UK, whether that's our great news organizations, the Telegraph, the Mail, the Guardian, and many others, whether that's our great broadcasters, the BBC, or Sky, or Channel 4, or Channel 5, and ITV. We know that being creative and inventing new businesses is absolutely vital to the lifeblood of not just the UK economy, but the global economy. And we know that investment is necessary to build those new businesses and create those new jobs. So welcome. It's going to be an amazing day of conversations. And to kick us off, I'm absolutely delighted to introduce the right Honourable K.B. Bader Nock, the Secretary of State for Business and Trade. Thank you very much. For the 2023, thank you to everyone who's travelled from across the globe to be here today to mark the next chapter in this country's future. Two years ago, at our inaugural Global Investment Summit, we were still in the throes of a pandemic, yet investors put a near 10 billion pound vote of confidence in our country because they saw the huge potential for growth that we had to offer. It sowed the seeds for our hugely successful Northern Ireland Investment Summit in September, which put Belfast and Northern Ireland firmly on the global boardroom map. And as a growing science and technology superpower, the Prime Minister held our first ever AI summit earlier this month to ensure the UK is at the forefront of a pioneering world of artificial intelligence. Now, it won't come as news to many of you in this room, but the UK is already a fantastic place to invest. That's why you're here. We are now third in the world for total inward investment, currently standing at $2.7 trillion and are the top destination in Europe for FDI projects. We have attracted more greenfield FDI than Germany and France combined. We also have the most valuable tech sector, only the third in the world to reach a trillion pounds in value. Last year alone, we created 112,000 jobs in all corners of the UK from inward investment, with many more being created here today. Since the Department for Business and Trade was formed just a few months ago, we have seen even greater investment in this country. In my first few days as business secretary, I ushered in a momentous deal for Airbus and Rolls-Royce, providing new aircraft for Air India. In September, BMW announced the transformation of their Oxford mini-plant, which secured 4,000 jobs with Stellantis pledging a hundred million pounds for electric vehicles at Ellesmere port. Our investment minister, Lord Johnson, signed a 10 billion pound memorandum of understanding of Maribani just last month for green projects. Tata Group have pledged four billion pounds to create a new Gigafactory site in Somerset, which will transform our battery supply chains and create thousands of jobs. And last week, we saw 21 billion pounds of Korean investment in renewable energy, life sciences, and tech during the South Korea state visit. On Friday, we secured two billion pounds from Nissan for their sites in Sunderland, which will help secure thousands of jobs. And that's not to mention the global leadership we are showing in free and fair trade, such as joining the CPTPP trading block, assuring in our first post-Brexit free trade agreements with Australia and New Zealand, and unlocking six and a half billion pounds of fresh export opportunities across 75 markets in the last year alone. We're also taking huge steps to ensure that the UK's manufacturing sector is a world leader in innovation. Yesterday, I launched our three billion pound advanced manufacturing plan, which will invest in the long-term future of our innovative manufacturing industry by reducing costs and removing barriers to business. This comes off the back of the UK's manufacturing sector, leapfrogging France to become the eighth biggest in the world. But we cannot stand still. The world is changing fast, and the global economy is a very competitive place. So, just months ago, our historic trade deal with Australia came into force. Since then, we secured 10 billion pounds from IFM investors, five billion pounds from AWARE Super to TurboCharge Green Transition, infrastructure, tech, and life science projects, as well as 100 million pounds from Petritia for sustainable housing projects. As part of a 12 billion pound programme, Ibridrola have today confirmed seven billion pounds for our world-leading renewable sector, with partner groups, portfolio companies, North Star and Grem, committing a billion pounds and 500 million for new offshore wind infrastructure and community projects, respectively. And the UK tech scene continues its world-leading charge with combined investments totalling nearly six billion pounds from Microsoft, BioNTech, Yonder, Ellison Institute, Iowa, Oxford Quantum Circuits, and MediaTek. These investments total nearly 30 billion pounds, a colossal vote of confidence in the UK, proving further how we are one of the best places in the world to invest. But I want to take this further. I want the UK to be even more innovative, even more dynamic and even more successful. I want business to look at the UK and see it as a dynamo for investment, free trade, and growth. I said that my door is always open. My office is called the Department for Business. I want your ideas on how we can create a more friendly, common-sense regulatory environment, what things we should be doing differently rather than sticking to the status quo. I want to move away from just seeing regulation as the solution and focus instead on solving your problems. The numbers speak for themselves. And at today's summit, you will see why we are already on the path to even greater things. And so I'm delighted to welcome the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, to the stage to tell us even more. Thank you. Welcome to Hampton Court Palace and the UK's second Global Investment Summit. Now, my argument today is that the UK is a modern, dynamic, thriving economy. And we're better to prove those futuristic credentials than a 500-year-old palace. But this summit is not just a sales pitch for Britain, although you'd better believe that I'm going to give you that. It's also a chance for us to say thank you. I've spent my career before politics in business and finance, and so have many of my top team, including the Chancellor. And we know that it's not governments that grow the economy. It's businesses and investors like all of you. You create jobs, drive growth, generate wealth, and you even take on some of the biggest social challenges we face. And it may be unfashionable to say, but I believe that your success is our country's success. So I'm really grateful to all of you for making the time to be here today. And your presence, your decision to choose to invest in Britain is a huge vote of confidence in our country's future. And I think you're absolutely right to feel that confidence, because we are setting about making this the best place in the world to invest and do business. Now, I'm unashamedly proud of Britain, and there is a growing momentum right here in the UK right now. Don't just take my word for it. PWC survey this year of thousands of global CEOs rated the UK the most attractive investment destination in Europe. And you can see that confidence in the decisions that people are making, like Tata, BMW, and just last week in Nissan, investing billions into automotive and electric vehicle manufacturing. Or Microsoft, announcing today 2.5 billion pounds for critical AI infrastructure in addition to all the leading AI labs who already have their European offices here. Or the Ellison Institute of Technology, confirming today a billion pound investment into their new Oxford site, researching and developing new technologies including life sciences. And you can see that momentum to in our commitment to free trade. In the past year alone, we've secured new investment partnerships with the United States, Japan, and South Korea worth more than 50 billion pounds. We became only the first European country to join the fast-growing trans-Pacific trade bloc and hugely benefited from the sovereign investment partnership with the United Arab Emirates deploying over 14 billion pounds into the UK in a little over two years. And all of that is why this country is the one with the fastest investment growth anywhere in the G7. So when I say that this country can be the best place in the world to invest and to do business, you should believe me and believe me because of three big competitive advantages that we have. Our low-tax approach, our culture of innovation, and our people. Firstly, tax. The purest expression of this government's economic philosophy is that people and businesses make far better decisions about their own money than any government could. And I believe that allowing you to keep more of the return on your capital, our country becomes more competitive as a place to invest, grow, and create jobs. And make no mistake, we are cutting taxes. Not only do we have the lowest corporation tax rate in the G7, last week we announced that we would make full-expensing permanent. That means you can write off the cost of many capital investments in full. It makes our capital allowances regime one of the most generous in the world. And it was the biggest business tax cut in modern British history. And that's not all. We've got lower capital gains tax rate than France, Germany, Italy, and Japan. Some of the most generous tax reliefs on stock options anywhere in the world and we're cutting personal taxes to 27 million working people too. But while those taxes are crucial, they're not enough on their own to make this country the best investment destination in the world. We're also creating new ideas and turning those ideas into the most exciting companies of the future. And that's the UK's second competitive advantage, our incredible culture of innovation. Now the story of the United Kingdom has always been about discovery and invention. Ours is the country of Newton, Faraday, Hodgkin, and Lovelace, of Stevenson's steam engine, Darwin's theory of evolution, and the worldwide web, invented by Tim Berners-Lee who I'm delighted is attending here today. And that tradition is still very much alive. With less than 1% of the world's population, we have three of the world's top 10 universities, the third highest number of research publications, and the second most Nobel laureates of any nation. And we're turning those ideas into incredible businesses up and down the country with more tech unicorns than any country by the US and China. And more venture capital than France and Germany combined, not that I'm in any way competitive. But at a moment like this, when the tectonic plates of technology are shifting, not just in AI, but in quantum, synthetic biology, semiconductors, and much more, we cannot be complacent. And that's why we're investing record sums of public capital into research and development. Also cutting taxes for all of you that are investing in R&D and overhauling our listing rules to make it easier for those innovative growing companies to raise the capital they need. And outside of the European Union, we're delivering agile regulation that is pro-innovation and pro-growth. So whether it's in financial services or life sciences, agri-tech or our creative industries, innovation is the golden thread running through the British economy. But in the end, the greatest asset to any economy is its people. And that's the UK's third competitive advantage. Here at home, we're delivering a world-class education system. We've already got one of the most highly qualified workforces in Europe. And just as your businesses are having to adapt to the economy of the future, so our skills policies are evolving too, with our new lifetime skills guarantee which supports adults to retrain at any stage in their careers with record funding in vocational training like apprenticeships. But we don't have a monopoly on talent in this country. And we recognize that nearly half of our most innovative companies have an immigrant founder. So if you're an innovator, an entrepreneur, a researcher, you should know that the most competitive visa regime for highly skilled international talent is right here in the UK. And let me just give you one example. Our new high potential individual visa means that if you're a young person who's graduated from a global top 50 university, you can just come to the UK and stay here with your family for two years to just explore, work, study, invent. Nothing like that exists anywhere else in the world and it tells you everything about our pro-innovation, pro-growth, pro-business philosophy. So that's the opportunity here in the UK and that's why you should believe me when I say this is the best country in the world to invest and to do business because of that unique combination of a competitive tax system, our culture of innovation and our people. Now, I know people look at summits like this and often say that they're just big talking shots but let me tell you what we have achieved. This summit has galvanized new investments in the UK economy worth a total of 30 billion pounds over three times as much as the first summit that was held just a couple of years ago. That will support tens of thousands of jobs right across the UK. It will create new growth and new opportunities and it is a huge vote of confidence in our country's future. So thank you for choosing to be part of that future. Thank you for everything that you are doing for this country. With your support, we can and we will build an even brighter future for our children and our grandchildren. Thank you and enjoy the day. Thanks so much very much Prime Minister. Obviously anyone speaking about immigrant founders is gonna take a warm welcome from me. Already we started to hear some of the big themes we're gonna be talking about today, manufacturing, climates, tech, the regulatory environment. All those things are vital to a good environment for global investment in the UK and elsewhere. Also of course, the notion of tax and how that works.