Business secretary Sajid Javid attacks CBI over EU referendum

The business secretary on Monday night criticised the CBI’s stance over the EU referendum, overshadowing the appointment of its new boss, Carolyn Fairbairn.

Sajid Javid made his intervention at a dinner of the employers’ body, which has mounted a high-profile campaign to see Britain remain in the EU.

The government, which is calling an in-out referendum on continued membership of the EU, wants to negotiate changes with its European partners. Javid said the CBI had been showing a commitment to remaining part of the EU even without these reforms.

“You know how negotiation works. You wouldn’t sit down at the start of a merger or acquisition and, like a poker player showing his hand to the table, announce exactly what terms you were prepared to accept,” said Javid. “It doesn’t work in the boardroom and it won’t work in Brussels.”

His remarks were reported just hours after the CBI announced that Fairbairn, a former head of strategy at the BBC and ITV, would be its new director general.

Fairbairn, 54, will replace John Cridland – who has led the CBI since January 2011 – in November. She will be the first woman to lead the organisation, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.

It was already clear that one of Fairbairn’s main tasks will be to shape the CBI’s stance for the coming EU referendum.

Cridland and Sir Michael Rake, the CBI president, have supported Britain remaining in the EU but have been criticised for representing the view of big companies over smaller businesses.

Ahead of Javid’s speech, the CBI said Fairbairn supported its advocacy of Britain remaining in a reformed EU. The CBI’s members voted eight to two in favour of the position two years ago, but some big companies, including JCB, have taken a more hostile line on membership.

A CBI spokesman said: “Most CBI members are clear that the EU gives us access to 500 million consumers and helps set the global trade agenda.

“But reform must be an ongoing process and we support the government’s push for Brussels to focus on the big ticket issues, like signing more trade deals and doing less where it doesn’t add value.”

Rake said: “Carolyn is a remarkable business leader with an impressive background as an economist, journalist, management consultant and policy strategist. Her wealth and breadth of experience will be critical in steering the CBI through choppy political and economic waters, including an EU referendum.”

Fairbairn began her career as an economist at the World Bank and then worked as a journalist at the Economist and as a management consultant at McKinsey & Co.

She was also a Downing Street policy adviser from 1995-97 when John Major was prime minister and ITV’s director of strategy between 2007 and 2010.

Fairbairn was on secondment from McKinsey when she worked at Downing Street. Since then she has not been a member of a political party, donated to a party or otherwise been involved with party politics, the CBI said.

Having spent seven years at the BBC, where, as the director of strategy, she helped launch Freeview, Fairbairn quit in late 2004 to spend a year travelling with her partner, Peter Chittick, who is now her husband, and their children.

Her decision took the BBC by surprise when the broadcaster was in the middle of a tough charter review process. Chittick had just cashed in on the £66m sale of the Hotel du Vin chain he helped launch 10 years earlier.

Fairbairn was also a non-executive director at the Financial Services Authority for three years from 2008 and worked on the FSA’s separation into two regulators.

The CBI, which is the UK’s main business lobby group, said she was chosen from an initial list of 46 candidates that was whittled down to a shortlist of six.

Cridland was a CBI veteran when he became director general but the organisation has opted for an outsider in Fairbairn. Katja Hall, the CBI’s deputy director general, was thought to be a strong candidate for the job.

Fairbairn will also have to steer the CBI’s response to a further round of spending cuts planned by the chancellor, George Osborne. Cridland has broadly supported austerity measures, though the CBI has called for more infrastructure investment to support growth.

She said: “The debate around Britain’s relationship with the EU and the productivity challenge facing our economy will be two of the defining issues of the next few years, and I greatly look forward to representing the voice of British businesses of all sizes on these questions and many others.”

Fairbairn is a non-executive director at the outsourcing company Capita, Lloyds Banking Group, the manufacturer Vitec, the Competition and Markets Authority and the UK Statistics Authority. She will stand down from these posts before taking up her job at the CBI.

The government has tried to encourage greater numbers of women at the top of business and economic life by setting targets for female representation on boards of directors.

Frances O’Grady became the first female general secretary of the Trades Union Congress when she was elected in January 2013.