Cameron hosts business leaders after 'work harder' comments

David Cameron is meeting some of the UK's top business leaders, after senior ministers urged them to work harder to improve their performance.

On Sunday Foreign Secretary William Hague said bosses should stop "complaining" about the economy and Defence Secretary Philip Hammond accused them of "whingeing".

But the British Chambers of Commerce said firms were "busting a gut".

The meeting, in Downing Street, follows the UK re-entering recession.

It is one of the quarterly get-togethers of the prime minister's business advisory council, which includes bosses from Google, Sainsbury's and BAE Systems, as well as inventor Sir James Dyson.

It also comes ahead of the Ecofin conference of European finance ministers in Brussels on Tuesday, where the perilous state of the eurozone will be high on the agenda.

The UK economy went back into recession in the first quarter of this year and ministers insist that restoring economic growth is their key priority.

On Sunday, Mr Hammond urged bosses to do more, telling BBC 5 Live's Pienaar's Politics: "Large businesses are sitting on a pretty large pile of cash.

"What we have got to try and do is persuade businesses to take the plunge, to just use some of their cash pile, to take a judgement about where demand is going, where the economy is going in the future, and be prepared to back their judgement with investment in British jobs and capacity in the British economy."

Asked if he was accusing businesses of whingeing, he replied: "They are, yes, I suppose in a way whingeing about it."

Mr Hague told the Sunday Telegraph: "There's only one growth strategy: work hard."

He said the UK needed to "reorientate" itself, when it came to exports, towards expanding economies such as India, Thailand and Indonesia.

But the British Chambers of Commerce said businesses were already "busting a gut" and the government should do more, while Labour argued it was ministers who needed to "work harder".

Deputy leader Harriet Harman said: "Many businesses, who feel they are really putting their shoulder to the wheel, feel that they can't expand their businesses in the way they want to, because the banks won't lend to them.

"The difficulty is if the banks won't lend, if economic demand is flattened because of the government's macro-economic policies, then people are going to be saying 'Well, you should be doing your job as the government, not telling us how to do ours'."

Mr Cameron set up the business advisory council in 2010. It replaced the Business Council for Britain established by his predecessor, Gordon Brown.