Enterprising Brown ropes in the Royals

GORDON Brown will unveil the latest recruits tomorrow for his enterprise initiative - the Queen and other members of the Royal Family.

The Chancellor has signed up Buckingham Palace for a nationwide drive to promote business and reward entrepreneurship and has persuaded them to back his vision of building 'a shared commitment to wealth creation stretching across all communities'.

Details of the royal role are under wraps, but will be disclosed at the opening of an enterprise summit in London tomorrow.

Brown will also use the meeting for backstage diplomacy to help resolve rows between Europe and America on trade issues and the reconstruction of Iraq.

Among those attending will be Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Marjorie-Scardino of media group Pearson-and Arun Sarin of Vodafone. Other big names will include Eric Schmidt of Google, Sir Terry Leahy of Tesco and Jean-Pierre Garnier of GlaxoSmithKline.

Brown will urge economic reform in the EU and the tearing down of trade barriers between America and Europe.

A Treasury source said: 'We want to drive forward the free trade agenda and to overcome both trade and non-trade disputes.'

Brown may hope to use some of the business leaders present to mediate between Washington and Brussels.

Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, will also address the conference, as will Bank of England governor Mervyn King.