UK ‘needs urgent long-term plan’ to develop future green, hi-tech industries
Britain risks falling behind in a multibillion-pound global “arms race” of re-industrialisation without an urgent launch of a coherent plan for manufacturing, Andy Haldane has warned.
The influential economist, who is on Jeremy Hunt’s council of economic advisers, said the UK was “not really in the race at any kind of scale” as other countries steal a march in developing the green, hi-tech industries of the future.
“The world is facing right now an arms race in re-industrialisation. And I think we’re at risk of falling behind in that arms race unless we give it the giddy up,” he said.
The chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts thinktank said three factors underpinned the scramble: a need to boost the resilience of supply chains after widespread disruption during the Covid pandemic; decarbonisation; and rising military tensions.
It comes as the US and the EU invest billions of pounds to support domestic production of everything from renewable energy to microchips and electric vehicles, with Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) pumping $369bn (£292bn) into America’s industrial base.
Haldane, a former chief economist at the Bank of England, said: “China has been at this – green tech – for many, many years, and has stolen a march in many, many technologies, including solar and batteries.
“The west has belatedly woken up. The IRA is throwing cash to the wall on that. The cost of that [is] almost certainly north of half a trillion dollars. Possibly north of a trillion. The EU is now playing catch up, [and] the UK currently is not really in the race at any kind of scale.”
Speaking at an event in London held by the manufacturing trade body Make UK, Haldane urged the government to develop an industrial strategy to succeed the
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