Bosses of Aviva PLC (LON:AV.), Lloyds Banking Group (LON:LLOY) PLC, London Stock Exchange Group PLC (LON:LSEG) and other big banks and major insurers met new chancellor of the exchequer Kwasi Kwarten this morning and were told that Downing Street will pursue "an unashamedly pro-growth agenda".
As he and new Prime Minister Liz Truss try to exert a grip on the stalling economy, Kwarteng convened a meeting with City chiefs to explain his planned approach.
It was suggested, via a later Treasury statement, that the new chancellor explained that the energy crisis meant the government’s "first priority" will be to support families and businesses, "which will mean higher borrowing in the short-term whilst ensuring monetary stability and fiscal discipline over the medium term".
Kwarteng gave his commitment at the meeting to "ensuring the economy grows faster than our debts and keeping debt as a proportion of our economy on a downward path", the statement said.
At the meeting were also bosses from Barclays PLC (LON:BARC), NatWest Group PLC (LON:NWG), HSBC Holdings PLC (LON:HSBA), Legal & General Group PLC (LON:LGEN) as well as the UK arms of Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), JP Morgan, UBS, Blackstone (NYSE:BX), Fidelity and Bloomberg.
The new chancellor was also reported to have impressed on banks the importance of supporting their customers through the cost of living crisis, one insider told Sky News.
Recognising that UK growth has been "too low", Downing Street are committed to "a radical supply side agenda to deliver lasting economic growth", the Treasury said, alluding to Truss's plans for a smaller state with lower taxes, attempting to revive Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan's 'trickle down' economics of the 1980s that are beloved by many Conservative Party members but much derided elsewhere.
Truss and Kwarteng were co-authors of 'Britannia Unchained', a book published in 2012 that criticised the "bloated state, high taxes and excessive regulation [that] threatens to take the drive out of the British economy".