Carolyn Fairbairn, the new head of the CBI, has backed Britain remaining in a reformed European Union and expressed confidence that Europe would not tear the employers’ organisation apart.
In an interview to mark her appointment as the first female director-general of the business lobby group, Fairbairn sought to smooth over differences between rival pro- and anti-EU camps that surfaced during its recent annual conference.
Related: CBI urged to come clean on EU stance
She insisted CBI members would be asked for their views once the government had completed its negotiations with Britain’s European partners and before the in/out referendum was held.
Campaigners supporting Britain’s exit from the EU have argued that a 2013 survey showed strong business support for membership was flawed, but Fairbairn said opponents were a vocal minority.
“Our members want to stay in a reformed European Union. They do see the benefits of a single market of 500 million people as significant.”
She said the CBI’s wishlist of reforms – such as reducing regulation – was reflected in the negotiating stance adopted by David Cameron. “Business wants to take the opportunity to secure reform, but at the point when the deal is done we will ask our members again.
“I don’t think it will split the CBI. Some members hold different views but they are relatively few. We respect their views. They speak up. They are pretty vocal and that’s fine.”
Fairbairn, who replaces John Cridland at the CBI, said she wanted to see the gap between London and the rest of the UK narrow during her five-year term. “Devolution is the means not the end,” she said. “It is creating a lot of energy. There is a real opportunity to stimulate growth outside London, which is 63% of the economy.
“London has been a fantastic driver of growth. It is a true megacity. But we have had three decades of London growing significantly faster than the regions and there is such opportunity there.”
Citing the way in which moving BBC staff from London to Salford had helped boost the Manchester economy, Fairbairn said: “It feels like a moment in time to unlock growth outside London.”
Relations between the government and the CBI have been noticeably cool in recent months, with the employers’ organisation expressing unhappiness about issues such as the national living wage. Fairbairn adopted a conciliatory tone in her interview, noting that “what the government is trying to do and what business wants are aligned”. She supported the government’s deficit-reduction plan and saw an opportunity for a “productive partnership”.
She wanted the CBI to focus on long-term problems. “The 2000s were times of high growth based on debt, and issues around skills, infrastructure and exports were not on the agenda. The recovery in the economy means there is now an opportunity to focus on supply-side issues again and the underlying foundations of the economy.”
One of the few areas where she was critical of the government is the apprenticeship levy, which she says businesses consider to be almost like a tax. She said there was a risk of the government creating low-skill apprenticeships simply to hit its target of creating 3m apprentices by 2020. “On infrastructure we rank 24th in the world even though we are the fifth-biggest economy,” Fairbairn said.
Expressing frustration at the delay over deciding whether a third runway would be built at Heathrow or Gatwick, she added: “We need to do much better at this.”
Fairbairn said the CBI appreciated that there was not going to be a lot of public money available, and that there was a need to tap alternative sources of long-term funding for infrastructure, such as pension funds. “We remain very supportive of the government’s plan for fiscal consolidation. The job is not done. This is not a call for a massive increase in public spending.”
She said the chancellor George Osborne’s autumn statement on Wednesday should protect spending on skills, infrastructure and innovation.
Fairbairn lamented the UK’s poor standing in the global league table for investment in research and development, and said it would be a mistake were funding for initiatives such as the catapult centres - designed to promote collaboration between scientists and business - to be cut back.
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