Octopus founder Greg Jackson, Rolls-Royce chair Dame Anita Frew and former Tory business secretary Greg Clark are among the heavyweight names appointed to a new Industrial Strategy Advisory Council, launched by the government on Tuesday to help stimulate growth.
The panel, which also includes private sector top dogs like Prudential chair Baroness Shriti Vadera and Legal and General’s Sir John Kingman, will be responsible for helping develop and steer the Prime Minister’s long-awaited industrial strategy.
The sixteen strong panel includes experts from a range of business and economic fields, including unions, academia, industry bodies and business, and is set to meet for the first time on Tuesday.
The meeting, which will take place at Lloyd’s of London and will be attended by Chancellor Rachel Reeves and business secretary Jonathan Reynolds, will see the panel and ministers discuss investment, innovation and breaking down barriers to growth.
“Driving long-term economic growth requires ambition and collaboration,” Reeves said. “With the Industrial Strategy Advisory Council, we’re bringing together the brightest minds to inform our industrial strategy and deliver growth that will improve living standards and that can be felt across every corner of the UK.”
The publication of Labour’s industrial strategy will mark the first time in over three years since the UK has had a top-down, government-led approach to industry. Boris Johnson’s Conservative government opted to scrap his predecessor Theresa May’s strategy, in a controversial decision by then-Chancellor Rishi Sunak.
The announcement of the council, which will be chaired by Microsoft’s president of enterprise and industry Clare Barclay, comes after Reeves and Reynolds published a blueprint for the strategy in October, outlining the areas and sectors that the strategy is expected to prioritise.
‘Actively direct the structure of the economy’
In a Green Paper titled Invest 2035, Labour identified advanced manufacturing, clean energy, financial services and defence, among other key industries, as its eight “growth-driving sectors”. The strategy will provide the architecture by which the government would attempt to help incubate and support those sectors, using initiatives like the fledgling national wealth fund.
The paper said that economic shocks such as climate change, the “digital transformation” and Covid had meant there was a “strong case for government to more actively direct the structure of the economy”. It added that its main objectives would be to rebuild Britain, support jobs, unlock investment and improve living standards.
But the strategy has drawn scorn from free market think tanks, with Sam Bidwell, director of the Adam Smith Institute’s Next Generation Centre, telling City AM: “The UK has a long history of failed industrial strategies, which are usually more about politics than sustainable industrial growth.
“If we want to get our industrial businesses growing again, we need to get the basics right – that means planning reform, lighter regulations and a new pro-growth energy policy.”
The industrial strategy council’s deputy chair has been named as Nancy Rothwell, the vice chancellor at the University of Manchester until earlier this year.
Other members include: Kate Bell, assistant general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, Professor Dame Diane Coyle of the University of Cambridge, Tunde Olanrewaju, the managing partner at McKinsey UK, Henrik L. Pederen, chief executive of Associated British Ports, and the interim chair at Skills England, Richard Pennycock.
Jonathan Reynolds said: “Whether it is investment into new film studios, cutting-edge technologies, or green energy, the expertise and work of the Industrial Strategy Advisory Council will be key to giving investors the solid foundation on which to build, helping to support local skilled jobs and raising living standards in communities across the UK.”