Productivity Commission Evidence Session: The Underperformance of Business Investment

An evidence session of the Productivity Commission focusing on 'The Underperformance of Business Investment'. The main questions that the commissioners will be asking the witnesses will be around Sizing Business Investment, Intangibles and Business Investment, Financing Business Investment, and Policy and Business Investment.

The witnesses for this session are:

Andy King (Member of the Budget Responsibility Committee, OBR)

Before being appointed to the Budget Responsibility Committee in 2018, Andy King was Chief of Staff at the Office for Budget Responsibility from 2013.

Andy joined the civil service as an economist in 1998, working in the Treasury until 2001 and at the British Embassy in Tokyo until 2005. Andy then worked in a range of macroeconomic policy roles at the Treasury, including heading the Fiscal Policy team for the June 2010 Budget and the Macroeconomic Coordination & Strategy team overseeing reforms to the UK monetary policy framework and UK-focused relations with international organisations.

In 2009-10, Andy worked as a macro-fiscal advisor in the Liberian Finance Ministry. Andy was appointed to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Fiscal Affairs Department’s panel of technical experts in 2014 and has since advised several Finance Ministries in Africa and Asia on approaches to fiscal governance, reporting and forecasting.

Frances Haque (Chief Economist, Santander)

Frances Haque is the Chief Economist and Head of Economic Analysis at Santander UK, providing forecasts and economic advice to ExCo and the Board.  Frances also specialises in Competition and Regulatory economics and has appeared on BBC News, Sky News and radio programmes – including the Today programme – providing commentary on published economic data and analysis.

Prior to joining Santander, Frances worked for a variety of different institutions including EY, BT, BBC, Ofcom and OFT.

John Llewellyn (Consultant – formerly of University of Cambridge, OECD and Lehman Brothers)

Co-founder of Llewellyn Consulting, John Llewellyn was formerly Global Chief Economist and then Senior Economic Policy Advisor at Lehman Brothers. This followed almost twenty years at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris, where John had been Head of International Forecasting and Policy Analysis; Editor of the OECD Economic Outlook; Deputy Director for Social Affairs, Manpower and Education; and finally, Chef de Cabinet to the Secretary-General. Prior to that John spent nearly ten years at the Faculty of Economics at the University of Cambridge and was also a Fellow of St. John’s College.

Martin Sartorius (Principal Economist, CBI)

Principal Economist at the Confederation of British Industry, Martin Sartorius is responsible for supporting the CBI’s macroeconomic analysis of the UK and the bi-annual US economic forecast. Martin leads the CBI’s quarterly financial sector survey and regularly presents on the UK economic outlook to business leaders and government stakeholders. Martin also supports a variety of economic analysis work for CBI policy projects and has experience managing and delivering economic consulting projects for CBI Economics.  Martin has previously led the CBI’s bi-annual China, India, and oil market forecasts, in addition to the manufacturing and distribution business surveys.