Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to promote engagement with residents and businesses in Cheltenham constituency on the industrial strategy in order to maximise the benefits of that strategy to that local area.

The launch of the Green Paper, ‘Building our Industrial Strategy’, in January 2017, commenced an extensive period of consultation, capturing feedback to inform the development of the White Paper. Over 2,000 organisations from across the country responded to the consultation, including a wide range of businesses, public sector organisations and private individuals.

The White Paper set out the government’s approach to working with places to maximise the benefits of the Industrial Strategy, based on the belief that the people best placed to drive forward local economies are those who live, work and do business in them. It included a variety of new opportunities for Local Enterprise Partnerships to drive local economic growth. I am sure that GFirst, the LEP for Gloucestershire, will be keen to build on the area’s cyber security strength with Cheltenham home to GCHQ.

The White Paper also included proposals to work with local leaders to develop Local Industrial Strategies, which will establish new ways of working between national leaders in both the public and private sectors, harnessing their local insights to develop clear, long-term strategies for future growth. Universities, colleges and other local institutions will be key in this process.