Lord Grimstone said the investment seizure was vital to “level” efforts since the Conservative landslide in 2019 as ministers seek to channel billions in overseas spending into areas of the country that have been neglected for decades.
The minister also revealed further details of the global investment summit later this year to attract the world’s largest investors to green projects. The event in the style of the “Great Exhibition” will take place in mid-October in the London Science Museum two weeks before the postponed COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.
He said: “We are showcasing green industries and I think it will be the largest collection of major investors that we have ever had under one roof in the UK.”
“There will be between 150 and 200 people. It’s not just financial investors, it’s the world’s largest companies investing in the UK, as well as the world’s largest investors. “
“We have to throw France back from the top spot” – Interview with City Grande Gerry Grimstone
Most of us would prefer to slow down in our seventies, but not so for Gerry Grimstone, who is tasked with opening the wallets of foreign investors to waste billions on Britain.
“I’ve never worked so hard in my life,” says the city’s grandee, now officially known as Baron Grimstone of Boscobel, having accepted the title of nobility to become minister and head the newly established Office for Investment .
“I start at half past seven in the morning and finish around 11:30 p.m. to 12 noon. I work six and a half days a week. I have a work-work balance. I can get to Waitrose on a Saturday morning, ”he says dryly.
The peer only had half a day with his new team before the first lockdown last March, but is now used to a stressful schedule of up to 20 Zoom calls per day, from the Japanese in the morning to the Saudis and the US on Eve . Zoom is “incredibly efficient”, although in actual meetings you “never know whether they are big or small”.
The Office for Investment (OFI) is said to be the “spearhead” of Britain’s efforts to fund public and private projects: a small team of intergovernmental fixers housed in the Department for International Trade, but close to 10 Downing Street, the Grimstone of his Whitehall window can be seen from across Horse Guards Parade. “The prime minister could probably hear me if I shouted loud enough,” he said.
