CBI boss attends first event with minister since misconduct scandal

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The head of the CBI attended an event chaired by a UK minister on Tuesday in her first known high-level government engagement since the business lobby group was boycotted over a misconduct scandal in April. 

Rain Newton-Smith, director-general since April, was among invitees at a “roundtable” meeting on Tuesday morning between City minister Andrew Griffith and a group of financial firms and lobbyists, according to several people with knowledge of the gathering. 

A de facto ban on engagement between ministers and the CBI officially remains in place, with one government official saying there would be no such contact this side of the House of Commons recess, starting on July 20.

But the lobby group’s presence at the meeting was seen by one senior government official as a sign of “some normalisation” of relations.

Some people at the CBI had seen Newton-Smith’s attendance as an indication that the government was moving to “slowly and carefully reopen” relations with the group, said one person who was invited to the Bloomberg event.

The event was hosted at Bloomberg’s Square Mile headquarters the day after chancellor Jeremy Hunt unveiled reforms on Monday night aimed at boosting investment in UK companies. 

The group has been frozen out by ministers since April after The Guardian published claims of serious sexual misconduct at the lobby group, including two allegations of rape, which prompted an investigation by police.

It has been attempting to resume normal activities as it battles for survival after losing a large number of members following the scandal, including FTSE 100 groups Aviva and NatWest. 

CBI members backed a planned governance and leadership overhaul in a vote of confidence last month but turnout was low, with less than one-third casting a ballot. Regaining access to ministers is seen as a key hurdle to convincing many of the CBI’s 1,200 remaining member companies and trade associations to renew their membership. 

The government declined to comment but a Treasury source said: “The minister attended a roundtable hosted by Bloomberg with a wide range of stakeholders — including the CBI.”

UK prime minister Rishi Sunak said previously that the issues at the lobby group “are for the CBI and for its members to work through”. The government has said it will “engage with businesses on a case-by-case basis”. 

The CBI declined to comment. 

CBI representatives have also shared a platform with at least one minister at other events in recent weeks. The group’s director of innovation was listed alongside Paul Scully, junior minister at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, as a speaker at an event on the regulation of artificial intelligence at City law firm Shearman & Sterling on June 28. 

The opposition Labour party partially lifted its boycott of the CBI in June with shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds meeting Newton-Smith.