Foreign investors are losing faith in Starmer's Britain

The government says it wants to go 'further and faster' on delivering economic growth, writes Chris Blackhurst. But a fall in inward investment shows how far they have to travel

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If there is one statistic that should ring alarm bells in government it is this: that the number of foreign direct investment (FDI) projects in the UK has fallen to the lowest level since records began 18 years ago.

It isn't the Tories or a Tory-backed think tank saying this but the government's own people, the Department for Business and Trade. There were 1,375 FDI projects secured by the UK to the end of March, down 12 per cent from the previous year and the lowest since the data began to be compiled in 2007-08.

Why does this matter? Because investment from overseas brings with it jobs and prosperity. It's a declaration of faith that Britain is a good place in which to do business and by choosing to come here, foreign businesses are preferring this country over others.

Britain needs that international money, it cannot rely on homegrown capital to drive wealth. But increasingly, it's not coming. Investors, it seems, do not like what they see and would rather go elsewhere.

The phenomenon is not new - the peak, of 2,265 ventures, was in 2016-17 - but it gives the lie to Sir Keir Starmer's much vaunted growth agenda. We're told that the prime minister and his chancellor, Rachel Reeves, are going further and faster to kickstart the economy. A year into their rule, a period that more or less coincides with the official DBT update on FDI, foreigners are telling us something very different.

There is of course, more than one way to skin a cat, and a DBT spokesperson duly insists: "This government knows the power of inward investment and is laser-focused on targeting the highest-impact job-creating wins across the UK, which is why the value of our FDI projects has gone up over the past year as we seek quality over volume."