UK chancellor of the exchequer Jeremy Hunt has set out measures to unlock growth and facilitate FDI, as the government outlines the “biggest package of tax cuts" in 40 years to help stimulate the country’s economy.

Among the 110 measures alluded to in the Autumn Statement to kickstart the UK economy, such as cuts to business taxes and national insurance, Mr Hunt announced during his speech to the UK parliament on November 22 a “concierge service” for foreign investors in line with a review led by Conservative peer Lord Harrington.

“We accept all [Lord Harrington’s] recommendations and in particular, we’ll put in place a concierge service for large international investors, modelled on the best such services offered by our competitors, and will increase funding for the Office for Investment to deliver it,” said Mr Hunt.

Launched in April this year and published after the UK chancellor's speech, the 'Harrington Review of Foreign Direct Investment' has formed the basis of the UK’s reform to its FDI strategy. 

According to figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, headline FDI flows into the UK have progressively declined since the Brexit referendum in 2016, and since 2021 these have remained below outflows. 

Greenfield FDI, where foreign companies build local operations from the ground up, has bucked the overall trend, mostly because of big-ticket projects in sectors such as renewables, according to figures from greenfield investment monitor fDi Markets. However, overall greenfield FDI activity, as measured by the number of greenfield FDI projects, has yet to bounce back to pre-Covid levels. 

In a bid to reverse the trend of foreign investors shying away from the UK and to raise productivity, Mr Hunt also made the country’s ‘full expensing’ capital allowance programme permanent. “That is the largest business tax cut in modern British history,” he added.

The UK government unveiled the capital allowance programme earlier this year. Through it, businesses are able to fully deduct investments in equipment, plant and machinery from taxable profits. This was set to run until March 2026 and in turn followed a tax ‘super deduction’ made in 2021.

Torsten Bell, chief executive of the think tank Resolution Foundation, wrote on the social media platform X on 22 November that the fact that the chancellor has made the ‘full expensing’ of plant and machinery investment permanent “is a big deal that will in the long run raise investment and gross domestic product [GDP]”. 

“[It] costs a lot upfront but higher GDP will cover much of the longer-term costs,” he added.

As part of the Autumn Statement, Mr Hunt confirmed that he would extend the financial incentives for investment zones and the tax reliefs for freeports from five to 10 years.

On 20 November, the UK government launched the third investment zone in West Yorkshire, focused on Huddersfield, Bradford and Leeds, which it said “could create more than 2500 new jobs over five years across the region and unlock more than £220m of investment”.

Elsewhere, the UK government’s supply-side measures included removing planning red tape, speeding up access to the national grid and supporting entrepreneurs raising capital.

Notably, the “planning and grid reforms are estimated to accelerate around £90bn of additional business investment over the next 10 years”, Mr Hunt said.

The chancellor also said the government will invest £500m over the next two years to fund innovation centres “to help make [the UK] an artificial intelligence powerhouse”.

“We are delivering the biggest business tax cuts in modern British history, the largest ever cut to employee and self-employed national insurance, and the biggest package of tax cuts to be implemented since the 1980s,” he said when concluding his speech. “An Autumn Statement for a country that has turned a corner.”