Bloomberg Talks
00:01:29 · Tiwa Adebayo, Ian Thomas
[00:01:29] S1: Good morning, Ian. Thank you very much for joining us. I have to ask, we are in the wake of the budget announcement. Just how far did it go in terms of boosting the UK's financial and professional services sector? Are you disappointed about announcements like the bank tax, for example? Do you get the sense that the City of London is frustrated with the direction. [00:01:50] S0: Of this government? Well, as the chief executive of the City of London Corporation, I'm here to run the corporation and I serve elected members. The head of the corporation is the Lord Mayor, the Lady Mayor at the moment in terms of the current holder of office and the Chairman of Policy and Resources, Christopher Hayward. They speak for the city on these matters. What I will say is that I am excited about devolution. So from a local authority place perspective, evolution presents endless opportunities for London boroughs, ourselves in the city, and the Greater London Authority under the Mayor of London to boost infrastructure investment. And I'll kind of speak to that and also tackle some of the inequalities we're seeing across London. My chairman, Christopher Hayward, has posted a video this weekend that talks about some of the growth opportunities around the wealth fund and investment for scale up scale and scale ups and and and founders but um but yeah i'm my job is not a spokesperson for the corporation that's for my politicians and i know that you know chris and uh they maybe may quite well and they'll speak to you in due course when you have them on the.
00:01:50 · Ian Thomas, Caroline Hepker
[00:01:50] S0: Of this government? Well, as the chief executive of the City of London Corporation, I'm here to run the corporation and I serve elected members. The head of the corporation is the Lord Mayor, the Lady Mayor at the moment in terms of the current holder of office and the Chairman of Policy and Resources, Christopher Hayward. They speak for the city on these matters. What I will say is that I am excited about devolution. So from a local authority place perspective, evolution presents endless opportunities for London boroughs, ourselves in the city, and the Greater London Authority under the Mayor of London to boost infrastructure investment. And I'll kind of speak to that and also tackle some of the inequalities we're seeing across London. My chairman, Christopher Hayward, has posted a video this weekend that talks about some of the growth opportunities around the wealth fund and investment for scale up scale and scale ups and and and founders but um but yeah i'm my job is not a spokesperson for the corporation that's for my politicians and i know that you know chris and uh they maybe may quite well and they'll speak to you in due course when you have them on the. [00:03:07] S2: Show yeah absolutely we speak to chris hayward frequently um look i wonder i In terms of the backdrop of the City of London, I mean, we've seen, and Bloomberg has reported a lot in terms of the exodus of high profile individuals, people like Chris Rockos. How can you ensure that wealth creators, that talent remains in the City of London? Can the corporation do more on that front?
00:03:33 · Ian Thomas
[00:03:33] S0: Well, I think we can. You're seeing a huge increase in numbers of jobs here in the city. So, Under the auspices of Chris Hayward's Destination City initiative, we've seen a 25% increase in jobs in the city since the pandemic. We expect, given the figures we've seen, that to grow to 900,000 jobs by 2050. We've seen an increase in footfall. So as an example, we've increased 6% on footfall in the square mile since last year, and a whopping 15% on Sundays. And When you look at GVA, this area is the most productive in the UK at 113 billion GVA. So I think we're doing kind of the right thing as our local plan sets out a vision for additional 1.2 million square meters of grade A office accommodation, 4,000 additional hotel beds. And things like the new museum that's opening on the 28th of November will attract two million more visitors to the Square Mile as well. So these are really exciting projects and initiatives that will see us continue, I think, our growth spurt in the Square Mile. And as you know, the Square Mile and London does grow. benefit the UK. The success of UK growth will depend on how well London does in ensuring that there is growth in every postcode, which is the Prime Minister's primary objective.
00:05:11 · Tiwa Adebayo, Ian Thomas
[00:05:11] S1: But of course, this question about the attractiveness of the City of London is not just exclusive to people and to talent. There are also questions about the exodus of UK listed companies and also foreign takeovers of British firms as an economic threat. We've heard Dame Julia Hoggett, CEO of the London Stock Exchange Group, calling this a national security issue. Do you agree with those concerns? [00:05:36] S0: Well, for me, there are always challenges and kind of headwinds no matter which jurisdiction that you're operating in. You know, we've got a very solid insurance sector, as an example. So, you know, a third of our FPS is insurance. And we've seen investment into the square mile with State Street coming in, HSBC coming back in here, Clifford Chance, et cetera. So, you know, I'm a bit more optimistic. But I tend to have an optimistic perspective on matters anyway, which speaks to the award and what the award can do to raise the aspirations of many young people in this country. We have a million young people not in education, employment and training in this country. So I think they need to see. role models in rooms that they don't normally occupy. So I'm kind of veering towards the optimistic approach, if I may. The words of Helen Keller, if you don't have optimism, then nothing will be achieved.
00:05:36 · Ian Thomas, Caroline Hepker
[00:05:36] S0: Well, for me, there are always challenges and kind of headwinds no matter which jurisdiction that you're operating in. You know, we've got a very solid insurance sector, as an example. So, you know, a third of our FPS is insurance. And we've seen investment into the square mile with State Street coming in, HSBC coming back in here, Clifford Chance, et cetera. So, you know, I'm a bit more optimistic. But I tend to have an optimistic perspective on matters anyway, which speaks to the award and what the award can do to raise the aspirations of many young people in this country. We have a million young people not in education, employment and training in this country. So I think they need to see. role models in rooms that they don't normally occupy. So I'm kind of veering towards the optimistic approach, if I may. The words of Helen Keller, if you don't have optimism, then nothing will be achieved. [00:06:41] S2: Yeah, absolutely. I was interested by your point around devolution. Do you think that that actually might benefit the City of London? I mean, there's, again, on the kind of questioning side of things, the concern in some senses about devolution is that there will be money given to parts of the country in every postcode that maybe cannot, don't have the capacity to utilise it to deliver economic growth. I mean, one could argue that maybe the City of London is not one of those places. If devolution does mean more money, you know, what would you be able to do with it in terms of delivering more economic growth?
00:07:18 · Ian Thomas
[00:07:18] S0: Yeah, well, if you listen to people like our lady mayor, Dame Sue Langley, and our chairman, they talk up the city. You know, we are competing globally with other jurisdictions. And we're seeing the benefits in terms of the interest, you know, our vacancy rates are grade A office accommodation is just 1%. So there's lots to play for there. With regards to devolution, the economic spending power of the mayor will significantly increase with its share of income tax locally. The devolved budgets for 16 to 19 will help with that growth problem and support the supply chain of talent into the growth sectors across the country. So that will be really, really good. And I just see opportunities aplenty. One of the things that does worry me, if you want to talk about things that concern me, is around a disinvestment potentially or a threat potentially to our police and disinvestment. So we've got a, there's something called fairer funding, the government's fairer funding regime, which is about sort of the funding it provides to local authority areas. And we're seeing a huge cut potentially down the tracks. We've secured transitional agreement with the government, which is fantastic. We are grateful for that. But looking ahead to 3031, that looks very challenging if we don't retain that funding to continue to stimulate economic growth and further our police force. So the City of London has its own police force dates back to 1839. It secures the district. A safe district is a successful district. And myself and colleagues, our view is whilst police reform generally is welcomed, we understand the need for it. The distinction of having its city police force protecting a very, very busy area with a very busy daytime population here and growing is critical. And as well as that, our lead on tackling national fraud, which is a risk. to the business community of £ 6. 8 billion is something also that I'd want the government to think really careful about. And this is echoed by our leaders such as Dame Sue Langley and Christopher Hayward.