 Well, good evening everybody! I hope you have a great evening and there's a great buzz around the room it has to be said. Can I start by thanking Phillip for his earlier speech highlighting all the work he and Sarah are doing on behalf of the CBI to champion growth in London, Phillip it's much appreciated? And thanks also to tonight's sponsors AT Kernie, DHL andakaific. We hear from the mayor earlier, wasn't it? Barnstorming performance. Even if it's a bid on fare on whoever follows him. That said he had to leave us which was his big mistake because now I can say whatever I want without fear of witty retaliation. So here goes. I got back this morning from China where images of Boris's Beijing flag waving are burned into collective memory banks. Dyma'r ddechrau i ddod yn Ysgrifennu Unedig, wrth gwrs, mae'n ddweud yn ddweud yn ddweud yn ddweud yn ddweud, yn ddweud yn ddweud yn Cyfrwyr Crikey. Yn ymwyaf yw Andrew Jimson, ysgol y byddau y bydau gyda'r ysgolau yma, yn ddweud yn ymgyrch o'r bydau. Ond y gallau yma maen nhw yn ddweud. Dyna, rwy'n gwybod e'n cael ei ddefnod o ffyniadau le'r ziweld yn cyflodiaethmdd gael gwirwyr i'r gwirwyr i'r gwirwyr, ydy'r gwirwyr grid ar gyfer yng Nghymru? Rwy'n gweithio, ond y ddorgol am gyfaniedig yn cadwogol gwneud y pwysig fagaf yn bethau yn tirwach primary yn ychydig yn gyflasio wahanol eich llwyth hwnnw pryd yng ng ül dim. Ond mae'n fawr am symud fydd computer. Fyddech chi'n bod i fod yn ymwneud yn popeth bwysig ffartigol a chyflodion ac yn ymddangos yw'r newydd o'r ysgol yn yma yn ystod o'r ddweudio â'r ddweudio a'r cyd-dweudio. Mae yma'r cyd-dweudio cymorth Cable yw'r cyd-dweudio ar gyfer y Cyfrwng Ddemocrat ac yn ymdud o'r cyd-dweudio gyrfa ar gyllid yn ymdynolol o'r gyfnodau gweithgu i'r maen nhw'n dod o gwrsio ar y ddweudio ac mae'n gwybod llwyddon cael eu ysgrif yn y dyfodol o'r llwyddon a'r fringiau ac i'r cyfrwng ymddangos. The 11th Hour thanked goodness that board headline writers were rescued by the Home Secretary's claims about a certain cat. Which quickly of course became Catgate, the Cat Flap, or in the worst pun of all the Tory Clause Four moment. But for me the message that resonated from the conferences was that these are tough times ac mae'r gweithiau yn Abertaidd yma ac mae'n ddigonio i chi. Yr enw i'r ddechrau, mae'r cyfrwyngau'n gyffredigau er mwyn o'r cyfrwyngau. Rhyw o'r dweud y tiynau'r gwaith hwn yn rhaid o fewn. Mae'r gwaith sydd wedi'u cefnod arnynt i chi gweithio'r ddechrau. Rhyw oedd i'r gweithio'r gweithio, dwi'n ddiddordeb o'r Lundin. Mae'r ddaf yn gweithio'r ddechrau i'r cyfrwyngau, rhaid o'r ddweud i'r gweithio'r ddweud, A Llywodraeth's leading business sectors offer us the best hope for high-end jobs, value-added and export growth. Your creative industries are a real success story, and one with plenty more chapters to come. And we have world-beating business, professional and financial services here in this fair city. And we mustn't countenance any policies that hold them back. This week I heard first-hand about the demand for British, and in particular London expertise in my week in China, as China's economy develops and its jobs move up the value chain. And as this continues, so will the opportunities for our architects, our designers, our engineers, our management consultants, our legal experts, our accountants and, yes, the city itself. I spent some time with intercontinental hotels who were building 150 new hotels in China in the next three years, and are busy recruiting, wait for it, one CBI member company, 120,000 new staff in China. I spent time with Jaguar Land Rover for whom China is now their biggest market anywhere in the world by value. And last night, at dinner at the Hong Kong Club, I found that our business footprint in the special administrative region is bigger than it was before 1997 when we all wondered what would happen when the Royal Yot Britannia sailed out of the bay on the 1st of July. So we're in a global village, aren't we? The success of London, the success of China connected together. We have dynamos of growth if we have the confidence to grab them. I've often said to coalition ministers that they need to apply a simple question to every decision they take. Will this encourage private sector growth, as Philip said earlier? If the answer is no, reconsider and reconsider fast. But the serious part of my message tonight isn't for the UK government. Instead, I want to focus my attention on the European Union. The likely effect of some of the things that are going on in Brussels at the moment will be to damage our prospects for growth. We can't let that happen. Now, you may be thinking that I'm about to talk about the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis. A big concern, incidentally, for the Chinese leaders I met this last week. But actually tonight I'm not. I find it too depressing. I'm thinking about the impact of new regulation from Brussels on London. Nowhere is this more acutely the problem than for professional and financial services, which I think are being bombarded by an unprecedented list of heavy-handed regulation. Take the announcement by European Commission President Barroso of his proposal for a financial transaction tax. Despite the Commission's own official impact analysis showing it could dent EU gross domestic product by the equivalent of more than 100 billion euros a year. It did an impact assessment that still announced the proposal. The tax would be an incredibly blunt instrument, one that could increase the cost of capital for business, hold back growth potential and raise minimal revenue in return. And it's a policy that would penalise the UK and penalise London as Europe's leading financial centre. Diverting activity to New York, Singapore and where I was this morning last night, Hong Kong. Sweden, you may recall, introduced a financial transaction tax in the 1980s. Share price is plummeted, half of Swedish equity trading up sticks and came to London. The volume of bond trades fell by 85% and the futures market by 98%. No wonder the Swedish government got rid of the tax and no wonder that the Swedes are now, along with the UK, the taxes most vociferous opponents. The cost of having a Tobin tax across Europe but nowhere else in the world wouldn't just rest with the banks. It would ultimately be borne by all of you as businesses and investors, the very people who will get us out of our economic problems. The European Commission can't argue that the financial services sector doesn't make a fair contribution. I, like a few other people, have had just about enough of bank bashing. Our financial services sector accounts for 10% of UK economic output, 11% of income tax and 15% of corporation tax. It employs a million people or put another way a million more taxpayers. And I don't think a financial transactions tax would correct risky behaviour. I haven't seen any compelling evidence to suggest there's a link between transaction volumes and financial instability. So I see it as another revenue raising exercise. If you like in Brussels, the flip side of trying to solve the Eurozone crisis and one will hit London disproportionately hard. Now sadly this isn't the only dubious looking initiative coming out of Brussels. Michelle Barnier, the European Commissioner for the Internal Market Services, has also had some ideas recently. Let's just touch on the proposals for Solvency 2 which set capital requirements for insurance firms. And they deliver a two in one hit from the Labatoire Barnier. First, they'd have a major impact on insurance companies and pension funds as potential providers of the long-term investment capital critical for our infrastructure renewal. As drafted, the proposals promote an investment strategy of punting on supposedly risk-free EU sovereign debt, and shortening the duration of corporate debt investments. This suggests that money is better spent on government bonds than being put to work funding energy, road and air infrastructure. The second hit from the same proposal is to impose Solvency 2's style capital requirements on wait for it, defined benefit pension schemes, which we happen to have more of than the rest of Europe put together. This affects all business with defined benefit liabilities, whether or not they're closed to members. The proposals to make pension funds follow the same standards as insurance firms. It means they have to plan for one in 200-year incidents. Now I know mortality changes do and are happening, but they don't do it suddenly in the same way that disasters before insurers. So the new regime is highly inappropriate. I think it was worse. I think it would be devastating. Imposing a Solvency 2 regime on pensions will double technical provision levels. It could mean half a trillion taken from business investment funds in sponsor companies. It could hammer growth and job creation. Once the money's in the scheme, there's a further risk. The new required shift to risk-free assets would lead to a flight from equity and corporate bonds into high-grade government gilts. The effect of dumping stocks on already volatile markets would be pretty catastrophic. So Solvency 2 doesn't look too good to me either. But Labatoir Barnier isn't done there. The proposed capital requirements directive would be another problem for London with a maximum harmonisation approach. We surely want a competitive level playing field at a time of economic peace. But to combat emerging bubbles or respond to signs of financial stress, the UK and all member states need the full range of policy levers at their disposal in times of crisis. This directive would take them away. Meanwhile, his proposals for corporate governance and audit market reforms have also got big implications for London. On corporate governance, proposals seem to be based on a distrust of the UK's principles-based code and our comply or explain philosophy that I do think has served us so well. Recent experience from Sarbanes-Oxley in the US shows what happens with a law-based prescriptive approach. You get minimal benefit at maximum cost. There's a lack of understanding that set rules can't work for every type of company with dangers of reforms for financial institutions being imposed over listed companies and talk of extending corporate governance rules to the unlisted sector. To me it feels like another Brussels power grab with EU-wide rules imposed where we know that national codes of governance are far more able to reflect the different marketplaces and shareholder bases. Finally, Brussels is concerned about over-concentration in the audit market and the risk of failure in one of the big four. They are legitimate questions. We need robust audit to provide investor confidence and reduce the cost of capital. Right now, surely that could be hardly more important. But Brussels has views on what to do about it that I don't share. The Commission has imposing mandatory joint audits near the top of its list of reforms. In the UK, as you well know, we can already, if we choose to, appoint joint auditors. Few have ever chosen to do so, although the list that have happens to include BCCI bearings and polypec. In reality, they just add costs and open up cracks through which audit quality can disappear. A ban on non-audit services is on the agenda too. With no evidence that these affect audit quality or independence and could just reduce choice, hit quality and add to costs. It would also damage the business model of some of the UK's best firms and biggest graduate recruiters. Now, I think I've said enough about this. I'd like to take you back to the mantra I've been using with British ministers for policy doesn't boost growth in it. Why did I choose tonight knowing I was following one of the best comedians in London to talk about an issue so serious? It's because this is slipping past us under the radar screen. At the time when we're worried about Europe and rightly worried about Europe and focused on the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis, we have a tranche of regulatory proposals which are taking up the CBI's time night and day to address which could actually be the knife in the back of London's competitiveness. At the time, Philip, when we're getting a grip on many of the issues that you and the mayor talked about, there could be something which weakens our ability to help the citizens of Britain be safe about their living standards and their job prospects. So I have the same message for President Barroso as I have for the government. Show some leadership here, set out some red lines and make it clear what EU citizens need above all else is sustainable economic growth and the jobs it brings. That means working with business. It means boosting professional and financial services firms, not battering them with unsound, costly reforms. There are parts of President Barroso's empire that he needs to get a grip on and now before lasting damage is done. I hope this is a message that will resonate here in London but it should do elsewhere. Our friends in Europe need to consider the cumulative impact of all the ill-judged proposals they've put on the table and get on with the growth agenda. For London business, for all business, it's vital that they do. You know the CBI has rarely been busier than it is at the moment. Growth in Britain is our top priority. Politicians want our help and we are giving it. But my message tonight to them is let us get on with the job we're good at, growth. Thank you very much.