May speech shows PM's change of tack on business

For most of her first two years in office, Theresa May gave the impression of not liking business very much.

One of her earliest acts as Prime Minister was to dismantle the business advisory panel put in place by her predecessor, David Cameron, which had included the bosses of some of Britain's biggest companies.

Then there were the policies.

Mrs May proposed putting workers on boards but, after the Chancellor Philip Hammond and the then communities secretary Sajid Javid criticised the idea in cabinet, she dropped it.

Another idea abandoned was a proposal to make employers reveal what proportion of their workforce are immigrants - in what was interpreted as an attempt to name and shame businesses failing to employ enough Britons.

One measure that was pushed through was the introduction of a price cap on energy bills, an idea first proposed by the former Labour leader Ed Miliband, in the face of opposition from the energy industry.

The jury is still out on whether the policy will achieve any positive outcomes.

Mrs May also made an inflammatory speech at the Conservative Party conference in 2016 in which she said: "If you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere. You don't understand what citizenship means."

That was interpreted as an attack on international business leaders whose work frequently takes them from one country to another and many took offence.

So, too, did Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, who is Canadian.

The constructive relationship with business that had existed under Mr Cameron - and, indeed, under his Labour predecessors Gordon Brown and Tony Blair - was abandoned.

Apart from a handful of bosses from the car industry, such as Carlos Ghosn of Nissan, the direct line to 10 Downing Street that senior business leaders had previously enjoyed was cut off.

They were told to address any concerns to Greg Clark, the business secretary, although a handful of executives were invited to join Mrs May on a trip to India.

Complaints that Mrs May had not met many business people were common.

The 2017 general election and the subsequent departure of Mrs May's former chief of staff Nick Timothy, who was widely seen as anti-business, changed all that.

Policies perceived by as hostile to business were ditched.

Mrs May began inviting small groups of business people for meetings and social events in Downing Street.

Her speech on Wednesday to the Bloomberg Global Business Forum in New York, a high-powered business audience, was indicative of that change of approach.

This was a clear attempt to reassure businesses anxious about the UK's governance and prospects, post-Brexit, with a pledge that her government will be "unequivocally pro-business" after the UK leaves the EU.

The most eye-catching pledge in her speech was a promise that, "whatever your business, investing in a post-Brexit Britain will give you the lowest rate of corporation tax in the G20".

Mrs May is committed to bringing down the rate of corporation Tax, currently 19%, to as low as 17% by 2020.

There has been some speculation that this manifesto pledge might be abandoned, in order to help pay for the extra £20bn-a-year that the government has promised to spend on the NHS, so business will have welcomed this promise.

It puts clear blue water between the Conservatives and Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party which, last year, pledged to raise corporation tax to 26% and shows every indication of sticking to the policy.

But cutting corporation tax is only one aspect of attracting business.

Those who run global businesses and who can choose to locate their activities almost anywhere in the world look for other things too, most notably, access to talent.

Mrs May sought to address that with these words: "We will put in place a new immigration system that will allow businesses and universities to attract the brightest and best to the UK."

That is a message that will have been well-received but many businesses will wait to see the fine detail before committing new investment to the UK.

Something else businesses seek is good regulation.

Mrs May sought to address that too, promising "a consistent and dependable approach to high standards but intelligent regulation", but again many will look to see the details.

That particularly applies to the services sector which, unlike manufacturing, has seen little in Mrs May's Chequers proposals to suggest it can continue trading with the EU along similar lines after Brexit.

As the chairman of one big services company puts it: "For the services sector, Chequers represents the hardest of Brexits."

Mrs May was onto something when she spoke about many workers being left behind by globalisation and by the insecurity many feel when confronted with the rise of automation and artificial intelligence.

But tackling that insecurity while continuing to make the UK an attractive investment destination is harder than populist politicians like Mr Corbyn and Donald Trump suggest it is.

One criticism business leaders frequently make of British politicians - both Conservative and Labour - is that they too often forget that globalisation is an ongoing process and that Britain can no longer act in isolation from the rest of the world.

Labour's proposals this week to force companies to hand over 10% of their equity to an 'Inclusive Ownership Fund' without compensation for their shareholders, seem to many almost specifically devised to drive some businesses away from the UK.

Similarly, some of the isolationist trade policies adopted by Mr Trump look likely to end up destroying as many American jobs as they will protect.

Britain cannot operate in a vacuum. It needs to carry on attracting inward investment.

And, as a reminder of the competition Britain faces in this respect, Mrs May will have noted that, alongside her at the Bloomberg event, were the presidents, prime ministers and heads of state from France, Canada, Norway, the Netherlands, Mexico, Nigeria, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Rwanda, Colombia, New Zealand and South Africa, among others.

All would love to attract the same businesses and investors Mrs May is targeting.