How can a nation so rich in brains and banks be so poor at building world-beating businesses?

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• Industrial strategy inquiry
• Business and Trade Committee

The tariff threat comes atop manufacturers in Britain facing much higher energy costs than neighbouring and competitor nations: Nissan stated their Sunderland plant has the highest energy costs of any of their factories the world over. The impact on Britain as an investment destination is clear.  

The Committee will now turn to regional mayors Andy Burnham of Greater Manchester, Kim McGuiness of the North East Combined Authority and London deputy mayor for business and growth Howard Dawber on the role of devolved authorities in making the national industrial strategy work. What are the tensions and roadblocks in trying to drive local growth under national policy? Can the mayoralties ensure that Local Growth Plans avoid the failures of previous initiatives like the Local Industrial Strategies? 

Another major theme that has emerged across BTC inquiries this Parliament is the difficulty of accessing finance to grow a business, as it progresses beyond the start-up phase. Executives from Barclays, The British Business Bank, the National Wealth Fund and TheCityUK will be questioned on their approaches to addressing this need; followed by the innovation agencies charged with bridging the UK’s “commercialisation gap”. Why does the UK seem to have such difficulty translating world leading research into marketable tech and competitive advantage? 

Rt Hon Liam Byrne, Chair of the BTC, said: “We boast the world’s finest universities and one of the planet’s most powerful financial centres. Yet too often, our brightest ideas die in the lab while capital idles in the City - or worse, our greatest young minds are shifted and lifted abroad.

“How can a nation so rich in brains and in banks be so poor at building world-beating businesses? If we truly want to be the fastest-growing economy in the G7, we must bridge this gap. That’s why, as we bring together big banks and bold inventors, we’ll be asking a simple but urgent question: how should the government’s new industrial strategy finally solve Britain’s scale-up problem?”

This inquiry is examining what the right support from Government for industry looks like now – the policy changes and support needed in response to Britain’s well-established structural growth problems, alongside emerging threats like the ongoing trade ‘war’.  Do Government proposals for a 10-year 'modern industrial strategy' really fit the bill?