The consultation on the Industrial Strategy Green Paper closed at the end of November. Phil Ward, Director of the Eastern Arc research consortium (which comprises the universities of East Anglia, Essex, Kent and Sussex), welcomes the intentions of the Strategy, but questions some of the details.
Since the last Industrial Strategy was launched in 2017 we have had a dozen strategies and policies seeking to steer the economy and encourage growth. Many of these have had strong research and development elements to them, including the R&D Roadmap (2020), the Plan for Growth (2021), the Integrated Review (2021), the Levelling Up White Paper (2022), and the Science and Technology Framework (2023).
Given this, do we really need another strategy? For the Government, the answer is clear: it wants to put flesh on the bones of its central mission (to ‘secure the highest sustained growth in the G7’), but also to draw a line under the snowdrift of strategies that defined the last seven years.
The resulting green paper is a serious piece of work by a Government that wants to be judged on its seriousness. The authors have clearly done their homework. This is a sensible framework of growth with eight unsurprising ‘growth-driving sectors’ at its heart.
Having said that, there are some surprising omissions and concerning inclusions.
The first omission is an explicit commitment to working with universities in developing and implementing the strategy. Yes, it praises (five times) the UK’s first-class, world-class and global universities, but it doesn’t go as far as to name the sector as stakeholders with whom it will develop the strategy, despite listing others on 10 separate occasions.
It is a small thing, and possibly an oversight – I’ve certainly talked to academics who have been involved in conversations with the authors – but in mentioning business, unions, mayors and experts, it is surprising that universities do not explicitly appear.
Universities are essential to the success of the Industrial Strategy; they contribute more than £265bn to the UK economy, £63bn of which is around research and knowledge exchange, and are a key part of the R&D supply chain, through their symbiotic relationship with commercial research, and their provision of a pipeline of talent to the eight growth sectors.
Other omissions are less surprising. There is a Nelsonian determination not to look at or recognise the positives of the strategies penned under the last Government. It would have been good to at least have acknowledged and ideally built upon the work that was previously undertaken, which provided a lodestar for businesses and universities gearing up to meet the nation’s needs.
It also feels like a trick is being missed: for instance, in proposing a statutory Industrial Strategy Council – a very positive move – there is no reference to the work done by the former (non-statutory) ISC that was captained by Andy Haldane and existed between 2018-21. In dismissing previous strategies as ‘too short-lived’, there is a danger of adding to the churn.
Where the Strategy did adhere to a familiar trope was in framing the greater south east (GSE) as both a poster child and bete noire for regional success. This is too broad a view of a complex region that contains both productivity hotspots and areas of significant and entrenched deprivation. One hides the other: the M4 corridor and the Golden Triangle mask the deprivation of its coastal communities, many of which are in the top 20 in terms of indices of multiple deprivation, and one of which (Jaywick in Essex) is the most deprived in the country. There is a need for a more nuanced and granular understanding of need and potential, and recognising that in parts of the GSE there is as much need for Government investment as elsewhere in the country.
The most concerning inclusion, however, is an explicit commitment to devolve ‘significant powers’ to mayoral combined authorities (MCAs), ‘giving them the tools they need to grow their sectoral clusters and improve the local business environment through ambitious Local Growth Plans.’
MCAs cover less than half the population, and none in the Eastern Arc region. What will happen to those of us outside of MCAs, including universities? Jim McMahon, the Minister for Housing, Communities and Local Government, is keen to push on ‘determined devolution’, and there is an expectation that the Devolution White Paper, which was due to be published at the end of November but has been pushed back to the end of the year, will include measures to set out a new, more directive framework to speed up devolution deals.
McMahon has been quoted as saying that the Government intends to create ‘foundational combined authorities’ as a precursor to regions moving to MCAs. But what will this mean in practice? The Centre for Cities has concerns that this will create ‘confused’ geographies, and risk adding to bureaucracy rather than removing it. MCAs were intended to meet the specific needs of urban geographies, and are not necessarily appropriate for those regions whose populations are a mix of urban and rural.
Even if this framework is successful, it will take time. For now, how will universities and the 50 percent of the population outside of MCAs be affected, and how should they work to influence and implement the Strategy? As the Devolution Bill makes its way through Parliament, will a two-tier approach emerge?
There is much to like in the IS Green Paper, but its success will rely on ironing out some of these details. I hope that the consultation, which closed at the end of November, will be a serious step in informing this process, and that the resulting white paper will offer a clear, equitable and inclusive way forward, with universities — regardless of their geography — acknowledged and accepted to be a key part of the process, as regional agents for positive change.