{"id":425796,"date":"2026-01-23T21:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T21:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/425796\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T21:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T21:57:09","slug":"im-picking-winners-uk-business-secretary-takes-activist-approach-to-economic-growth-economic-growth-gdp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/425796\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I\u2019m picking winners\u2019: UK business secretary takes activist approach to economic growth | Economic growth (GDP)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The UK business secretary, Peter Kyle<\/a>, has said he is \u201cbetting big\u201d and \u201cpicking winners\u201d as the government takes direct stakes in growing businesses to boost economic growth.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos<\/a>, where he and the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, have been talking up Britain\u2019s prospects, Kyle said ministers were taking an \u201cactivist\u201d approach to industrial policy.<\/p>\n

The idea of \u201cpicking winners\u201d is closely associated with the Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher\u2019s attacks on Labour\u2019s 1970s strategy<\/a> and her argument that it should be the private sector that decides which companies thrive.<\/p>\n

Kyle was unabashed about invoking the phrase, arguing a muscular approach could accelerate economic growth. \u201cI want to make sure that the benefits of growth are felt quicker than is currently the case. We\u2019re predicted to grow 1.5% this year. That is not enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

He highlighted the recent decision to allow the \u00a326bn state-owned British Business Bank<\/a> to buy equity stakes in companies, including the announcement last week of a \u00a325m investment in the energy supplier Octopus\u2019s software spin-off, Kraken<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most potential in our economy, in the short and medium term, is scale-up companies,\u201d Kyle said. \u201cI was at Octopus yesterday. They\u2019re now employing 1,500 people in their head office in London alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can find other companies that are on that kind of trajectory and we can expedite their growth. Then it will create thousands of new jobs, and it will create enormous amounts of wealth, which will recycle through the economy in a really fast way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am betting big. And I am picking winners,\u201d he added. \u201cIt\u2019s more activist. And there will be things that don\u2019t work out, sure. But to have a healthy economy, failure leads to success.\u201d<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s summit in the Swiss ski resort has been overshadowed by Donald Trump\u2019s threat to slap tariffs on eight European countries<\/a> if they stood in the way of his hopes of annexing Greenland.<\/p>\n

The president backed away from the idea<\/a> of punitive import taxes on Wednesday evening, after discussions with the secretary general of Nato, Mark Rutte, but several leaders in the Swiss ski resort have said the global economic order has irrevocably changed.<\/p>\n

Kyle insisted international uncertainty was no reason not to press ahead with Labour\u2019s agenda, highlighting the prospects of a \u201cwave of opportunity that technology and life sciences and all these huge, huge, positive waves of innovation are going to present to us\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cIf we are too intimidated by the global challenges, if we are too distracted by domestic political to and fro, then we will take our eye off the ball, and we will miss the opportunity of a lifetime, and that means real things to real people.<\/p>\n

While technology secretary, Peter Kyle said he was a regular user of ChatGPT. Photograph: Andy Rain\/EPA<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be kids growing up like me that will not end up becoming successful like I have. It\u2019ll be communities that, at the moment, are poor, and they will never have a hope of becoming prosperous. And I won\u2019t stand for it. I would literally do anything. And if that means betting [on] winners, and getting it wrong from time to time, I\u2019ll take it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Announcing the beefing up of the government\u2019s \u201cglobal talent taskforce\u201d in his department, the business secretary suggested that the UK hoped to capitalise on the instability unleashed by Trump\u2019s policies to help it attract jobs and investment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will suck the best talent in from wherever it exists, and talent goes both ways across the Atlantic. And I want to make sure that we have a good balance in that because for too long it\u2019s been in one direction,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Highlighting the need to attract innovators in particular, Kyle added: \u201cAmerica is being disruptive with tariffs, but America isn\u2019t the most friendly place for scientific endeavour in any case at the moment. Do the maths and add up where we\u2019re going with this. We are going out there and we\u2019re saying: \u2018Actually, we have one of the best regulatory environments in the world for life sciences, and across the board.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Keir Starmer has taken a tough line on migration \u2013 despite pushback from some quarters in the party<\/a> \u2013 promising to reduce it and condemning Boris Johnson\u2019s administration for what the prime minister has called an \u201copen borders experiment\u201d.<\/p>\n

But Kyle said he did not think public scepticism about migration extended to wealthy entrepreneurs. \u201cPeople are deeply concerned about the immigration system we inherited, and the asylum system, which was overwhelmed, and was poorly administered by the Tories, and therefore broken,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never had anybody that says that people with a lot of money to invest in our country, who want to come here and create jobs, create businesses, shouldn\u2019t be coming to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cI have a taskforce that\u2019s doing this, embedded in our global network. We can offer the world\u2019s most talented a bespoke package to come to the UK swiftly, to embed, and then, of course, be part of a funding landscape that is bountiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 55-year-old MP for Hove and Portslade has been business secretary since Starmer\u2019s September reshuffle<\/a>, replacing Jonathan Reynolds, who had done the job for several years in opposition.<\/p>\n

Kyle is politically close to the health secretary, Wes Streeting \u2013 who has been repeatedly mooted as a potential challenger to Starmer<\/a> \u2013 but has been scrupulously loyal to the prime minister in public.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, the business secretary rejected the suggestion that the UK try to negotiate a customs union with the EU, for which Streeting has signalled his support, telling the FT: \u201cI think at the moment it would be foolish to slip towards what would be simple solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kyle has dyslexia and left his state school \u201cwithout any usable\u201d qualifications, as he has put it. He made his way to university aged 25, and went on to secure a PhD, then worked in the charity sector before entering politics.<\/p>\n

In his previous job of technology secretary, he was forced to defend his closeness to powerful tech companies. He is a regular user of the chatbot ChatGPT and an evangelist for the opportunities offered by the technology \u2013 and is often seen in the casual garb favoured by \u201ctech bros\u201d.<\/p>\n

Soon after taking on his current role, Kyle struck a deal with business groups and trade unions to water down the implementation of Labour\u2019s Employment Rights Act<\/a>, introducing a six-month probation period before the promised \u201cday-tone rights\u201d come into force.<\/p>\n

He has continued to work closely with his successor and friend, Liz Kendall, and said he has insisted the connecting door that blocked the corridor between their two offices be opened up.<\/p>\n

Asked whether AI would cause mass layoffs as companies decide they can manage without entry-level staff \u2013 a hot topic at Davos \u2013 Kyle said: \u201cPeople are anxious and it\u2019s going to be painful and difficult because change is always painful and difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kyle said Labour was ready to intervene to ensure the adoption of AI was less painful for poorer communities than the deindustrialisation of the 1980s, which cast a long shadow.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cWaves of industrial change have always gone badly when governments stand on the sidelines and are not participants. And I will not allow that to happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs tech secretary I was negotiating deals for investment in digital infrastructure, insisting it happened in poorer parts of the country. I\u2019m the gatekeeper into our country for a lot of investors. And if they want to come and benefit from our country, then they can contribute to it as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UK business secretary, Peter Kyle, has said he is \u201cbetting big\u201d and \u201cpicking winners\u201d as the government…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":425797,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101],"class_list":{"0":"post-425796","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/425797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}