UK Modern Industrial Strategy

Victoria Collins Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I thank my hon. Friend for her work on the Business and Trade Committee; I always enjoy my sessions there, as do my ministerial team. She is right that finance is a huge issue and scale-up finance is a particular challenge. We intend to use the British Business Bank, as I have said, with much greater financial capacity to work directly with fund managers focused on the scale-up part of the finance journey. I know how big a problem this is. There is a lot of capital in the world and we have got to address this particular stage, and these are real measures that seek to do that.

[Victoria Collins (Harpenden and Berkhamsted) (LD)]

I welcome that we finally have an industrial strategy for this country; that is very exciting. On driving innovation, I absolutely support that larger British Business Bank and making sure we invest in scale-ups, although we need to make sure that it is about long-term investment and that there are incentives to de-risk investment. I really want to focus, though, on digital and technology businesses. As much as I welcome training 1 million young people, it is not just about young people. I have businesses like BT, Sage and Xero saying they work with small businesses that need to improve their AI and tech adoption, so what are the Government doing to support them and people of all ages?

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I thoroughly agree. It is an exciting day and the challenge is long-term consistency and reliability—which, frankly, this Parliament and previous Governments have not supplied. There is a key voice from business to us that we need to address. Digital and tech skills are one of the prominent features of the skills interventions in the industrial strategy in order to do what the hon. Lady says. It is a significant funding package and a significant partnership with businesses, who are telling us they want to work with Government and with young people and that they want to reskill people. I think there is more we can do, but this is the start. I am keen to work with the hon. Lady and any colleague who sees the urgency of this work and the benefits it could bring.