Prime Minister Theresa May will use her first regional Cabinet meeting this morning (23 January) to launch proposals for a modern Industrial Strategy to build on Britain’s strengths and tackle its underlying weaknesses to secure a future as a competitive, global nation. The plan sets out plan to drive growth across the whole country and create more high skilled, high paid jobs and opportunities as part of government’s Plan for Britain.
The green paper sets out ten strategic pillars to underpin a new government approach:
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Investing in science, research and innovation
We must become a more innovative economy and do more to commercialise our world leading science base to drive growth across the UK.
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Developing skills
We must help people and businesses to thrive by: ensuring everyone has the basic skills needed in a modern economy; building a new system of technical education to benefit the half of young people who do not go to university; boosting STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) skills, digital skills and numeracy; and by raising skill levels in lagging areas.
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Upgrading infrastructure
We must upgrade our standards of performance on digital, energy, transport, water and flood defence infrastructure, and better align central government infrastructure investment with local growth priorities.
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Supporting businesses to start and grow
We must ensure that businesses across the UK can access the finance and management skills they need to grow; and we must create the right conditions for companies to invest for the long term.
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Improving procurement
We must use strategic government procurement to drive innovation and enable the development of UK supply chains;
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Encouraging trade and inward investment policy
Government policy can help boost productivity and growth across our economy, including by increasing competition and helping to bring new ways of doing things to the UK.
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Delivering affordable energy and clean growth
We need to keep costs down for businesses, and secure the economic benefits of the transition to a low-carbon economy.
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Cultivating world-leading sectors
We must build on our areas of competitive advantage, and help new sectors to flourish, in many cases challenging existing institutions and incumbents;
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Driving growth across the whole country
We will create a framework to build on the particular strengths of different places and address factors that hold places back – whether it is investing in key infrastructure projects to encourage growth, increasing skill levels, or backing local innovation strengths.
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Creating the right institutions to bring together sectors and places
We will consider the best structures to support people, industries and places. In some places and sectors there may be missing institutions which we could create, or existing ones we could strengthen, be they local civic or educational institutions, trade associations or financial networks.