Rishi Sunak on Talent, Investment and Policy Trade-Offs in 2021

Harry Stebbings opens by asking Rishi Sunak about one of his first jobs, waiting tables. Sunak recalls setting tables, cleaning and preparing for the next day before eventually taking orders. He says the value was learning to work, earn a first wage and be part of a team, even in a job that was not glamorous.

Sunak connects that experience to hospitality, which had suffered during the pandemic. In this interview, recorded on June 11, 2021, he was UK chancellor of the exchequer. The video was published in October 2022 after he became prime minister; the policies and ambitions discussed here belong to the earlier interview, not necessarily to a later government.

Studying for an MBA at Stanford broadened his outlook, Sunak says, exposing him to entrepreneurship, innovation and thinking beyond incremental changes. He says he tried to carry a “startup Treasury” mentality into government, with more creative approaches to policy.

He links that experience to the Help to Grow schemes: management training for small and medium-sized businesses and support for adopting digital tools. Sunak presents these as ways to improve business performance; the interview does not independently assess their effects.

Stebbings asks how a leader creates a safe environment for experimentation when policies may fail. Sunak says government makes this particularly difficult, but the pandemic required novel responses under uncertainty. He says he aims to take public responsibility when a policy does not work, giving officials confidence to propose ideas.

On reviewing outcomes, Sunak describes formal government evaluations and ongoing changes as programs operate. He says some pandemic loan schemes did not work as intended on day one and were revised. His account of subsequent improvement is not supported with evaluation data in the interview.

Asked how the UK could attract talent, Sunak says people and skills are often the chief concern raised by technology businesses. He outlines proposals announced in the budget, including an unsponsored points-based route and a scale-up visa, as measures he expected to advance and implement later.

He also describes proposed changes to the Global Talent and Innovator routes and expansion of the Global Entrepreneur Programme. He acknowledges the existing Innovator route had not worked as well as intended. His characterization of the proposed regime as especially supportive is a political assessment made in 2021, not a statement of current immigration rules.

Stebbings asks what Sunak would have done differently. Sunak discusses the Future Fund, a pandemic-era financing program, saying the government moved quickly and consulted industry on design. He also argues that clear names and communication can make policy more understandable and accountable.

He says the government underestimated demand and did not communicate clearly enough that the fund could be expanded, leaving applicants worried about a fixed pot. He recalls an initial £250 million plan being increased to around £1 billion. These are his contemporaneous figures and account; the conversation does not independently audit the fund.

Sunak explains the trade-off around minimum eligibility thresholds and matched financing. Lower thresholds might include more promising young companies; stricter criteria, he argues, can help protect public money when officials are not individually selecting investments. He says it may take years to judge whether the balance was right.

Stebbings asks why the government changed Entrepreneurs' Relief. Sunak argues that the relief was used in ways unrelated to genuine entrepreneurship and did little to motivate some people to start companies. These are his arguments for the reform; the interview does not independently evaluate its distributional or behavioral effects.

Sunak says the relief was reformed rather than abolished and claims about 80% of previous users would still benefit. He then compares illustrative capital-gains rates of around 20% in the UK, 30% in France and 37% in California. These are his 2021 estimates for the scenario he describes, not a comprehensive or current tax comparison; actual treatment depends on circumstances.

Asked how capital-gains tax can attract founders, Sunak says tax is only one part of the UK's offer. He says businesses also emphasize access to skilled people, research and development, innovation and infrastructure. He cites a contemporaneous investment-intentions survey and international rankings as evidence of attractiveness, without giving enough detail here to assess them independently.

The host asks what government cannot simply do. Sunak emphasizes budget trade-offs: requests to spend on individual priorities rarely include a proposal for how to pay. He says choosing among competing priorities is an unavoidable part of his job.

Stebbings asks how to encourage pension funds to invest more in venture capital. Sunak says the Future Fund was a crisis response rather than a sustainable substitute for private investment. He argues that UK pension funds had historically invested less in illiquid assets than some counterparts in the US and Canada.

He describes work with the Bank of England, the Financial Conduct Authority and industry on a long-term asset fund intended to address liquidity issues. He hoped the vehicle would be established by the end of 2021. That was a future intention at the time of recording, not a claim about its present status.

A second proposal concerned the pension charge cap. Sunak says annual fee limits can be awkward for venture investments whose returns and associated fees are uneven over time. He describes a consultation on whether charges could be smoothed or made more flexible; the interview does not establish the final regulatory outcome.

Sunak adds that government can offer incentives and nudges, but changing a financial industry's culture is harder. The speakers then move to personal questions about his daily routine rather than continuing the policy discussion.

He says he normally wakes between six and seven, helps prepare his two daughters for school and sometimes skips breakfast while intermittent fasting. On other weekdays he eats yogurt and blueberries, followed later by a sweet pastry; weekend breakfasts include cooked food, pancakes or waffles.

His exercise routine had been disrupted by work, he says. When possible, he mixes Peloton, treadmill sessions and a high-intensity class at his local leisure centre. He treats the routine as a personal account, not advice for listeners.

Stebbings praises Sunak's first budget and asks whether he was nervous. Sunak recalls having little time in the role, feeling pressure in a full Parliament and looking to his wife in the gallery and supportive colleagues for reassurance. The automatic captions contain inconsistent estimates of exactly how long he had held the job, so the timing is not resolved here.

Sunak says he still gets nervous, particularly on live television where words are scrutinized. He tells young people that nerves are normal and suggests imagining that they are speaking to someone familiar. Stebbings jokes that his grandmother's advice to imagine an audience naked was distracting.

In the quick-fire round, Sunak names Roald Dahl as a favorite author and mentions Going Solo and Boy, alongside other books he enjoys. Asked about the hardest part of his role, he returns to allocating a finite budget among competing claims.

He says the advice he finds hardest to follow is to delegate and not let perfection prevent a good result. Asked what he would change with a magic wand, he jokes about making all Coca-Cola the Mexican version.

Looking five years ahead from 2021, Sunak says his priorities are helping people back into work after pandemic job losses, bringing borrowing and debt under control, and keeping the UK attractive to businesses and innovation. These are his stated aims at the time, not an assessment of what was achieved.