Cable said that "Britain must be open for business," in the double sense that it was working and that trade barriers did not exist, and that government should "foster financial stability" with budget discipline and give businesses "confidence to invest."

He sounded a warning note to bankers and the financial sector that they "don't engage in another self-indulgent bonus round," and called for banks to create a much broader choice for businesses in place in five years time.

To stimulate this he said government competition regulation would be streamlined and announced that in the New Year the government would consult on plans to make it more effective.

Reflecting the importance of the debate over how to tackle government debt, Ed Miliband the new leader of the Labor party, the main opposition to the government which was in power for 13 years until it lost the inconclusive general election on May 6, also gave a keynote speech to the CBI conference.

Miliband said that if Labor had won in May "there would have been cuts."

He attacked the timetable for the government's cuts package. " We believe that a four-year timetable for halving the deficit would be a better approach. And I do fear that the path the government is pursuing is a gamble with growth and jobs."

The government, he said, had a plan that will "lead to the disappearance of a million private sector and public sector jobs but no credible plan to replace them."

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