Industrial Strategy

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Wednesday 18th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

As the hon. Gentleman knows—the industrial strategy is clear about it—we benefit from the contribution of workers, scientists and engineers from all over the world. There is no successful future for an economy that does not engage with the world. That means that we should be open to talent from around the world. We need to make sure, as every responsible nation does, that we have an orderly system for managing immigration from around the world. That is what we are achieving and what we will continue to achieve. It is very clear, on every page of the strategy, that this is a vision for an international Britain, rather than one that is moving towards a kind of national self-sufficiency.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way and for the commitment he is making to ensuring that world-class talent from across the world can continue to come to support science in Britain. When the president of the Royal Society came to speak to the Science and Technology Committee, he pointed out that world-class scientists need to be mobile, anthropologists need to work abroad and those working for the British Antarctic Survey need to go to Antarctica. Will he make sure that the visa system is able to provide that mobility?

[Greg Clark]

That is very important. One of the commitments in the industrial strategy is to increase the number of visas and studentships for international researchers coming to work in the UK. Nobel prizes were mentioned earlier. I had the privilege, when I was Science Minister, to go the Nobel prize ceremony. What is notable is not just that a lot of Brits receive these awards, but that most Nobel prizes in the sciences are given to teams of researchers and that those teams are usually international. That embodies the fact that the best ideas come from the connections that are made between researchers from different cultures and different countries.

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[Rebecca Long Bailey]

The hon. Gentleman makes his point very passionately, but I do not think he has really listened to what I have been saying. We are certainly—[Interruption.] Please! If Government Members would listen rather than chunter, they might actually learn something.

We are far from average, as these comments from the Commission on Economic Justice illustrate quite articulately:

“We have vast ingenuity and creativity among our people, where enterprise and industry have deep roots going back to the Industrial Revolution. Many of the most important scientific discoveries in human history have taken place in Britain, advancing not only this country but also the entirety of humanity.”

We are far from average—I agree with the comments that the hon. Gentleman made in a, shall we say, quite haphazard and incoherent way—so why should we have to trail behind the world and settle for mediocrity from this Government in terms of investment in research and development?

[Vicky Ford]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Rebecca Long Bailey]

I will make some progress, if I may, then the hon. Lady can make further interventions.

In relation to skills, we were promised about £500 million of investment. That is frankly pitiful and does not even begin to repair the damage done to the adult skills budget between 2010 and 2015, when over £1.15 billion was cut. With research by PWC finding that 77% of CEOs worry that skills shortages could impair their company’s growth, and with the CBI stating that 69% of businesses are not confident about filling their high-skilled jobs, the Government’s actions have done little to show that they are creating a workforce truly ready for our industrial renaissance.

On infrastructure investment, we were promised £31 billion of investment through the national productivity investment fund. Again, that is below the levels seen in other leading industrial nations. As TUC analysis shows, the sums promised will simply increase investment to just 2.9% of GDP, whereas the average spend on investment by the leading industrial nations in the OECD is 3.5%. It is also clear that the Government have made no attempt to halt the skewing of infrastructure spending towards London, which is due to get more transport spending over the next five years than the rest of England put together.

That brings me to local industrial policy. Labour has been clear on the need for a national industrial strategy, but we are also clear about the need to be regionally powerful and distinctive, with the resources to match, and to build on the already world-class universities and businesses in our regions and nations. Since last November, the Labour party has been convening roundtables in every region and nation of the UK to discuss what businesses in those regions need from an industrial strategy. Alarmingly, in one region I heard that the responsibility for formulating a local industrial strategy had simply landed on the desk of the local enterprise partnership’s chief executive, with no additional resources. Could the Minster confirm whether there is a team in his Department working on local industrial strategy or whether that is simply now the responsibility of LEPs? Last month, the Local Government Chronicle argued that the Government should put more resources into agreeing a local industrial strategy if they did not want to risk concentrating their efforts on improving the economy in just a handful of areas.

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[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

We are in the middle of the fourth industrial revolution—a time of huge technological, demographic and environmental change—and the decisions we make now are crucial to our future. I welcome the focus brought by this industrial strategy, and particularly its focus on innovation. I am proud to serve on the Science and Technology Committee. It is science and research that delivers the innovation that drives a modern economy, and we are a world leader in science and research. Four of our universities are in the world’s top 10, one in six of the world’s top research papers are written here, and we have more Nobel prize winners than any country other than the US.

But we cannot rest on our laurels. Countries such as India and China are accelerating their investment and they want to woo our best scientists. That is why it is absolutely right that this Government are investing more in science and technology than any other Government in the past 40 years. Scientific innovation is not just about money—it is about people, too. World-class science needs world-class people. I am pleased that this industrial strategy establishes the Rutherford fund to help recruit researchers, doubles the number of tier 1 visas and gives a commitment to make it easier for world-class researchers to settle here. However, the devil is in the detail. We need a visa system that makes mobility easy for scientists. I thank the Secretary of State for the answer he gave on that earlier.

Research is changing. It is not just done by one scientist in one lab working alone; it is delivered through networks of collaboration. This industrial strategy points out that our closest relationships and collaborations are with EU member states. Britain has led the EU framework programmes, and I worked with Ministers to lead the latest one. More British scientists participate in them, and more hold European Research Council grants, than those from any other country. It is in our national interest to continue to participate. Ministers have confirmed that if the next framework is materially the same as the last one, Britain would like to continue. I ask them to make that point more positive by saying that we will continue to participate unless it is materially different.

We need to ensure that the best ideas are not just generated here but also developed and manufactured here. That is why I welcome the sector by sector focus in the strategy, and I would like to concentrate on some of those sectors.

Our space sector has trebled in size, and the jobs in it are highly skilled and highly productive. The Space Industry Act 2018 means that next-generation smaller, smarter satellites will not only be developed here but launched here. Space assets are key to our communications and our security. We are the only G7 country that does not have its own earth imagery assets. We have paid for the Galileo satellites, and Britain needs to benefit from that.

We are a world leader in life sciences. We are home to the Wellcome Genome Campus. It was a British Prime Minister who led the visionary 100,000 Genomes Project, and it is absolutely right that life sciences are at the heart of the industrial sector. We need to ensure that drugs are not just delivered and developed here but used here, and our Select Committee has done some very good work on how we can ensure that those revolutionary genomic drugs get delivered into the NHS.

Data is the lifeblood of the digital revolution, and we cannot separate digital from other sectors of the economy. The scandal of Facebook and Cambridge Analytica reminds us of the need for clear rules. It is great that the general data protection regulation is becoming the global standard and that this Government are delivering it into British law through the Data Protection Bill. The strategy also points to the need for legislation to be flexible, which I welcome.