The founding partners aim to shape the BCC’s policy and influencing, with the council forming part of the organisation’s new national offer to businesses.

Heathrow, Drax, IHG Hotels & Resorts and BP have joined the council as the first founding partners.

BCC director general Shevaun Haviland and BCC president Baroness Martha Lane Fox will join a wider group of business leaders at a roundtable meeting in central London toay to discuss the role of the council.