Google boss to advise Tories on economic recovery

Eric Schmidt joins David Cameron's committee - but "won't be able to attend that often"

Schmidt is advising David Cameron

Conservative leader David Cameron has appointed Google's Eric Schmidt to a top Tory working group that will draw up policies designed to help Britain out of the economic downturn.

Cameron named the search giant's chairman and chief executive as a key international business adviser to his new Economic Recovery Committee, but admitted that the California-based Schmidt "won't be able to attend that often" .

Schmidt will be serving "in a personal capacity", not as a representative of the world's most successful internet search engine.

Other members of the committee include senior bankers, retailers, industrialists and economists.