Insights
On Monday, the Government published their green paper for a new national industrial strategy. This sets out the broad direction of their plan for industrial strategy and the thinking behind it, before the full strategy will be published in Spring next year. The green paper is open for consultation until the 24th November.
The paper outlines a 10-year strategy that would target eight sectors: Advanced Manufacturing, Clean Energy Industries, Creative Industries, Defence, Digital and Technologies, Financial Services, Life Sciences, and Professional and Business Services. The next stage of the strategy will identify subsectors within these areas which will be prioritised, based on government objectives and evidence that policy can make a difference.
Below the overarching objective of delivering economic growth, the strategy aims to support transition to net zero, support regional growth, and build economic security and resilience.
On regional growth and the role of place in the industrial strategy, the Government say that growing clusters of businesses in the eight priority sectors, especially through targeting city regions, will be the core approach. This includes Mayoral Combined Authorities developing 10-year growth plans to work in tandem with the national strategy, and the Government aiming to support R&D investment, use the National Wealth Fund to make targeted investments in sectors, and develop plans for improving local skills.
The focus on city regions is a marked difference from the Levelling-Up approach of the previous government. For an overview of part of the economic logic of targeting city regions, you can read this CEP election analysis article, written ahead of the general election in July.
For all areas, and especially city regions, a new national industrial strategy can provide a framework from which to build local strategies that translate the national goals into local action and vice-versa. Our guidance on developing local industrial strategy provides a framework for how to think about local strategies, highlighting the use of data to understand the local economy as a core component. Keep an eye on our training page, where we will soon be announcing new dates for training on using local data to understand the local economy. Our resources on interventions to support innovation give a summary of the evidence on supporting R&D, and our apprenticeships and employment training resources both cover supporting skills.
This green paper marks the start of a process, not the endpoint, and the Government’s approach will be refined ahead of the publication of the full strategy next year. Our policy challenge page on local growth plans will be updated as we know more, and in the meantime local policymakers grappling with this issue can always contact us for advice.
