Industrial Strategy

Drew Hendry Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I am grateful for his question. One of the challenges is that we have is to make sure, right across the economy, that we are taking the opportunities to raise the productivity and performance of sectors in which many people are employed. The tourism and hospitality sectors are very important in that. They feature in the industrial strategy as two areas where it is particularly important to work together with firms big and small, as we are doing, to establish training institutions and spread technology so that we can raise their performance to compare with the strongest performance elsewhere in the economy.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of the statement.

We welcome, finally, this overdue industrial strategy. We welcome also the recognition of the grand challenges of artificial intelligence, clean growth, future mobility, and the ageing society—all of which are very important to Scotland. It therefore says everything that there has been no consultation with the Scottish Government nor any attempt to match the Scottish Government’s economic plan, particularly given that the Scottish Government lead in life sciences. How will that working with the Scottish Government be taken forward?

This is not an outcomes-based approach such as we have seen working successfully in Scotland. A plan without knowing its destination is just a plan, and it does not guarantee success. If it did, it would answer the big question on skills. The Secretary of State said that there was no point in having short-term strategy, but it has been pointed out, in terms of the Budget, that the training and learning budget fell by 13.6% per person in real terms between 2007 and 2015. With the uncertainty over Brexit already affecting EU nationals, perhaps he could tell industries where the skills that will be required in the short to medium term will come from.

While we welcome the £7 billion, which is a very big number, for productivity, why, according to the Red Book, does it apparently not come into effect until 2022? Do we not need to address productivity now?

[Greg Clark]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his questions. Working together with the Scottish Government is very important. On some devolved matters, it makes sense for them to be joined up. Last week, I had the privilege of meeting Keith Brown, the Scottish Government Minister responsible for this area. When the hon. Gentleman gets a chance to read the paper, he will see that there is substantial reference to our close working with the Scottish Government. It is very important that we do that.

On skills, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is foundational that we should equip our people with the skills that they need to take on the jobs that are being created. He might have missed the fact that we have increased very substantially the number of hours that people are being taught in further education colleges, so as to raise them in line with the best in the world. That is a very important contribution to this.

On the extra investment that the Chancellor announced, the national productivity investment fund is to be further extended to 2022. That is why the figure that he announced was for that particular year.