Economy: Productivity

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

My noble friend makes a very interesting point. That was the premise on which we undertook the patient capital review and one premise on which we set up the British Business Bank, so as to offer that kind of long-term patient funding that allows businesses to grow and prosper.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, what lessons did the Government learn from the very excellent paper produced by the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, on industrial strategy? What decisions are they taking to implement some of its recommendations?

[Lord Bates]

My noble friend Lord Heseltine undertook a review for the Government on competitiveness in 2012, which was a key part of what fed into our industrial strategy. The point that he made is that it is absolutely critical that we leverage our technical research and that innovation becomes a core part of what we do going forward. We totally accept that and recognise we need to do more. That is why R&D investment from the public sector is at its highest level for 30 years and why we are investing £4 billion in aerospace research and development; it is all to take forward those types of policies.