Foreign Minister Truss is up against former finance minister Rishi Sunak to win the votes of 200,000 members of the Conservative Party who will by Sept. 5 choose a replacement for Boris Johnson, forced to resign after a series of scandals.
Her meeting with finance bosses will take place at Aviva's London offices and attendees will include Nigel Wilson, chief executive of Legal & General, and Amanda Blanc, Aviva chief executive, two sources told Reuters.
Truss will lay out her agenda for attracting new investment, including reform of regulatory regimes known as Solvency II and MiFID which Britain introduced while a European Union member.
"For too long, we have allowed those who create wealth and high-quality jobs - dynamic businesses and hard-working people - to be weighed down by onerous EU bureaucracy," Truss said in a statement before the meeting.
"We haven't moved fast enough to take full advantage of Brexit. I'll make it a priority to slash EU red tape and ensure we have the right tools in place to attract investment and deliver growth."
The Bank of England warned on Thursday that Britain faces a long recession as energy price-driven inflation squeezes household budgets. Tackling that crisis and maintaining corporate confidence in the British economy will fall to Truss or Sunak in a month's time.
Britain's financial sector, one of its most important tax-raising industries, was cut off from parts of the EU after Brexit and the government is already reviewing rules inherited from the bloc amid calls from banks for greater emphasis on keeping the City of London globally competitive.
But bankers say there is no appetite for a "bonfire of regulations" given big changes cost money and can take years.
They have called for cuts on taxes levied on bank balance sheets since the financial crisis, and want to make it easier to hire talent globally now that unfettered access to hiring EU nationals has ended.
Truss said she will set up a group of business leaders to shape or recommend scrapping rules to make the industry more competitive and to help consumers.
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Marvin Le MartianMarvin you hit the nail on the head there buddy. The Brits were actually very good Europeans for following the rules and as you say a civil service that gold plated them. While other nations did the bare minimum or ignored them completely. State aid one of the classic examples. Political interference with business and procurement contracts Along with the working time directive. I witnessed this many times during working in Europe different interpretations of many regs. Much was made of regulations like this being a hindrance to businesses. My reason for voting to leave the European Union. Loss of competitiveness of European industries in the global area due to over regulation. Serious wage depression in lower quartile earners due to over low skill labour supply . The employers like Amazon love that scenario where the taxpayers support their businesses with in work benefits. Finally to make U.K. politicians be responsible for U.K. matters and not hide behind we can’t do that because of European regulations. Britains financial industry is one of three global players. Europes are regional operators small by comparison. The European Union’s financial regulators have said the want to eliminate dependence on the U.K. industry . “ good luck with that mirage “” so what concern is it to them. Why it should affect expats I really don’t understand.
Once again, the winners will be....the banks.
Marvin Le MartianAny new PM needs to make the most of Brexit as best they can irrespective of whether they believed it was better to have remained. The PM needs t (or really should) do what right for the people and going on in "remain-mode" isn't it. So I'm not going to have problems with Ms Truss on that. Other things… well yeah! As for going on and on about taxation, I feel the same. Although whomever wins, I'm presuming Truss at this point, needs to get through this next couple of recession years and then fight a general election. And that's on top of cleaning up after BJ. I'm sure that both candidates are happy for the field of discussion to be kept quite simple even though it probably shouldn't be as you mention.
Such a resolute remainer is now such an ardent Brexiteer? Anything to win the votes of the Tory faithful, I guess. The UK has long been known for gold-plating EU regulations, adding more complexity and cost, then when it flared up, blamed EU regulations. And here they are still doing it now! Not very impressed by this leadership contest. Tax tax tax. No discussion on climate. Not getting on top of that will render tax cuts, saving the NHS, our food and water security and everything else that used to matter utterly futile as we will all be stewing in the mess we have created. As another heatwave rocks into Europe, that’s 3 in Mallorca this year so far and it’s the driest and hottest summer on record…wake up and smell the……drains! Yech!