Financial Times "Main gripe of City Leaders is airport hassles"
Main gripe of City leaders is airport hassles
Financial Times, Thursday May 10th, 2007
Gordon Brown is on the point of achieving his ambition by succeeding Tony Blair as prime minister, but the burning question for many City leaders at yesterday's Downing Street summit was more mundane. 'Heathrow hassle' - the difficulties faced by executives when flying in or out of London's airports - contrasts unfavourably with the less onerous security measures and more congenial welcome for visitors to other financial centres. One of the three dozen or so members of the chancellor's high-level group on financial services spoke of having two of his four sets of contact lenses confiscated at check-in because of regulations about carrying liquids on to aircraft that are not much enforced outside the European Union.
Another asked what training in customer service was given to immigration staff, suspecting that they aspired to emulate their famously truculent counterparts in the US.
Such infrastructure problems remain concerns for the great and the good of the City, who are hoping the next meeting of the group will yield some answers.While there is appreciation for ministers' willingness to listen and the progress being made on overhauling the City's financial infrastructure, business leaders want to see progress by the next meeting in the autumn.
'Transport is everybody's favourite whipping boy,' said one participant. 'Everybody's fed up with Heathrow, everybody's fed up with the lack of (the proposed east-west rail link in London) Crossrail, everybody's fed up with traffic.'
Much of yesterday's meeting was taken up with reports from working groups set up to identify bottlenecks that damage London's competitiveness as a financial centre. Lord Levene, chairman of Lloyd's, set out initiatives to strengthen the general insurance market, saying he would work withthe government to streamline underwriting and increase the pool of insurance talent.
Ed Balls, City minister, reported on concerns raised by the Investment Management Association at the tendency of new funds to base themselves in Dublin or Luxembourg. The Treasury was working on tax and legal changes that would make London a more competitive environment for asset managers, he said.Mr Balls also launched the prospectus for a new International Centre for Financial Regulation, which has drawn backing from most of London's big investment banks.
Andrew Cahn, chief executive of UK Trade & Investment, reviewed progress on promoting UK-based financial services overseas. This will include branding the industry as 'The City'.On Crossrail, the terse response was that the case for it had been accepted.
The Treasury said the funding issues were significant, but it was confident that a way through would be found. The issue has been deferred to the next meeting, when the comprehensive spending review will have been published - allowing Mr Brown's successor as chancellor the opportunity to show the government can deliver on physical infrastructure, as well as the financial plumbing.