UK must renew industrial strategy and stop ‘flip flopping’, say manufacturers
Britain needs to relaunch an industrial strategy and stop “flip flopping” on initiatives if it is to avoid falling behind on the global stage, manufacturing bosses have warned.
Make UK, which represents 20,000 manufacturers across the country, warned British businesses risked losing out to companies elsewhere around the world because of the government’s lack of a long-term plan for industry, while Joe Biden’s $369bn (£292bn) Inflation Reduction Act sucks up investment.
In a stinging attack on successive Conservative governments for “flip flopping from one initiative to another,” it called for the creation of a royal commission to develop a long-term, modern industrial strategy to support companies across the UK.
Under Theresa May the government launched an industrial strategy in 2017, with a focus on increasing jobs and investment outside London and the south-east after the Brexit vote. However, the strategy was ditched under Boris Johnson, along with a powerful council of business leaders and advisers tasked with monitoring investment in Britain’s hard-pressed regions.
Stephen Phipson, the chief executive of Make UK, said the UK was the only leading nation in the world without a comprehensive, long-term industrial plan. “If we are to not only tackle our regional inequality, but also compete on a global stage, we need a national industrial strategy as a matter of urgency,” he added.
“A lack of a proper, planned, industrial strategy is the UK’s achilles heel. Every other major economy, from Germany, to China, to the US, has a long-term national manufacturing plan, underlying the importance of an industrial base to the success of its wider economy.”
Car industry bosses fear the UK is being left behind thanks to its failure to
Read more on theguardian.com
