Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Jonathan Reynolds' speech to Labour Party Conference 2026

Jonathan Reynolds, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade's speech to Labour Party Conference 2026

Thank you conference. Thank you Tom. Tom, it's a privilege to have you with us today and that introduction, and those words, mean a great deal to me.

Conference, it's good to be back.

Now some of you know I think, when I was a younger MP, some people used to say I looked a bit like Prince William. I tell you, twelve months as Government Chief Whip, I think I definitely now look more like George V. Five generations!

But conference, it is good to be back. Back to deliver for workers with our game-changing employment rights act. Back to deliver for British business so they can invest and innovate and grow. And back to reindustrialise every corner of our country, bringing jobs, growth and hope to every postcode.

And make no mistake, conference, we cannot and we will not succeed in that historic mission unless we work together with business, with entrepreneurs and with our great science, technology and innovation base.

And conference, I appreciate that it can be tricky to come to the great city of Liverpool and talk about the other great city down the road. But bear with me, because this is a story about the growth and renewal that I believe we can deliver across the whole of the United Kingdom.

When I was 18, I arrived from Sunderland to the bright lights of Manchester. Now back then, Manchester looked very different too. The scars of deindustrialisation still visible.

But today, Greater Manchester is a blueprint for what happens when we get things right, for what can be achieved when political leaders, business leaders and civic society work together, and where power isn't hoarded in the centre of government but used to give people what they need for their area to succeed.

And that story, that renaissance, led by our Prime Minister Andy Burnham, is a story I want to see for the whole country. And that is why conference it's at the heart of our aim to reindustrialise Britain.

Reindustrialisation isn't nostalgia. The sectors of the future aren't just about ideas. They rely on hard infrastructure and physical production. They create good jobs. And I refuse to let Britain be a country that generates the great ideas, only for other countries to build and scale them.

So I am delighted to lead a new department that combines the brilliance of our science base with the dynamism of British industry, so that ideas from our world-class universities become semiconductors manufactured in Durham, so that critical minerals mined in Cornwall power the next generation of AI chips, or so that life science discoveries in Cambridge become NHS treatments sooner.

That is what our modern Industrial Strategy is all about. Inventing it here, making it here and creating the good jobs here.

And, while the economy has grown per head, every quarter, with this Labour Government, make no mistake conference, we all know we have much more to do.

More to do for the small business, struggling because they haven't been paid on time. More to do for our incredible services sectors, who need barriers knocking down to deliver in every part of the world. And more to do for the workers, the people delivering this growth, the people I meet every time I step foot on a factory floor.

Conference, that is who I think about every day I am lucky enough to do this job.

That's why our science budget is the largest it has ever been. It's why our expanded Growth Guarantee Scheme is getting money to small business. It's why the British Business Bank not only has more capital to deploy, it has dedicated regional funds so that no part of the UK will miss out.

So to the communities who saw good jobs go decades ago and still don't feel they've replaced them which is as true in parts of the South as it is in the North my message is simple. We see you, we hear you, and we have a plan to reindustrialise Britain.

And conference, let us always celebrate the things that make this country great. The things we will never stop defending against those who only seek to talk Britain down.

Let's not listen to the mantra of misery from the Tories and Reform. For them, Britain can't be seen to succeed, because if it did, there would be no way for them to profit from the politics of division and grievance.

And don't get me wrong conference, of course there are challenges. But the difference with Labour is we're about providing answers, not lashing out in anger.

We don't bury our heads in the sand, we tackle the big issues head on. And nowhere is that more true than where we're fixing the industries the Tories left to squander.

Take steel. It was a proud national asset, left for years in severe neglect. Workers like Tom, unions and their communities, ignored.

And I didn't do it lightly, conference, but the day this Labour Government stood up for steel, stood up for Scunthorpe, and took control of British Steel, was one of the proudest days of my life.

You know, as Tom described, when British Steel was on the brink, they did have to come and say to me, Secretary of State, you don't have the power to stop this. And, to be fair, they were right.

But I knew I had to stop the kind of industrial devastation that has left too many places in the UK have felt in our history.

I knew what was right, and I knew I had 400 friends in Parliament, my fellow Labour MPs, who would be willing to come back on a Saturday and give me the power I needed to make a difference.

Most of all, I knew I had you. Decent, ordinary people, who have come together to build a extraordinary, political movement to make sure that wealth and power isn't just available to those who are already wealthy and powerful.

That's what this Party was founded to do.

And that's why we will also deliver the transformation at Port Talbot to guarantee a strong future for Welsh steel making. And it's why we have also refused to let Speciality Steel in South Yorkshire go to the wall.

And to all of those working right now in our historic automotive sector, at JLR, at Toyota, and the people I am proud to be of and from, Nissan in Sunderland, let me tell you, I will never stop fighting for automotive jobs and for those sites to continue to be the jewels in the crown of the UK's advanced manufacturing sector.

And on trade, conference let's never forget that this Government has succeeded where the Tories failed.

We've done a deal with the fastest growing economy in the world, India. We've done a deal with the biggest economy in the world, the US. And we've done a deal with our largest trading partner, the EU.

We won't fight the battles of the past, but we will always work alongside the countries that are not just our closest partners, but our fellow European brothers and sisters.

And conference, I am also proud that for us, trade is about Labour values. Just as we've shown in Israel and Palestine, making sure our commitment to a two state solution is a realone.

Now finally conference, I know the other parties don't like our New Deal for Working People. They've made it quite clear whose side they're on.

But, let's not forget, this is about no more or less than a person who goes out to work getting a fair day's wage for a fair day's work. It's putting an end to exploitative zero hours contracts so workers get one that reflects what they regularly work. It's about giving workers protections to stop harassment, and ending fire and rehire proving once and for all that only Labour, not Farage, not Polanski, is on the side of working people.

But conference, there is one area which both workers and businesses raise with me repeatedly, and that is bogus self-employment.

Loopholes in our employment laws being used to define workers as self-employed when they are clearly not, denying them basic employment rights, undercutting businesses who are doing the right thing, and leaving people with the sense that playing by the rules doesn't pay.

Everyone can see this isn't right. It is a fundamental question of fairness. And conference, I am proud to announce to you today this Labour Government will put an end to it.

We will close the loopholes, we will stop the most egregious examples of bogus self-employment, and we will level the playing field for business. And in doing so, up to 100,000 more workers will get access to the national minimum wage and holiday pay.

So conference, it is good to be back. We've shown the difference we can make. But there's so much more that we can deliver together.

Because only Labour is proudly pro-worker, proudly pro-business and unapologetically pro-Britain. 

Thank you so much conference, it is great to be back with you.