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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how the Industrial Strategy plans to support manufacturing business in Hendon constituency.

Through our Industrial Strategy we continue to take actions to support manufacturing businesses in Hendon and across the country.

We are working closely with industry to secure a strong future for UK manufacturers through major new investment in research, as part of our commitment to increase total R&D investment to 2.4% of GDP by 2027. We have so far allocated £1.7 billion through Waves 1 and 2 of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, bringing together world class UK research with business investment to develop the technologies and industries of the future. We are working with industry on proposals for a future third wave. We have allocated £70 million of grant funding to projects in London under the ISCF to date. Of this figure, £537,812 was allocated to the constituency of Hendon to support innovation in the healthcare sector.

At Autumn Budget we announced up to £121 million of funding, subject to business case approval and industry co-investment, for the Manufacturing Made Smarter Challenge. This will exploit the opportunities highlighted in the Made Smarter Review, which identifies significant benefits to the UK from integrating digital technology into manufacturing through a strong partnership between Government and industry. We also announced up to £66m for the Transforming Foundation Industries Challenge at COP24 in December 2018, subject to business case and industry co-investment. This Challenge aims to transform the UK’s foundation industries (glass, steel, cement, ceramics, chemicals) to make them internationally competitive, securing more jobs and greater sector growth by 2025.

In addition, we are working in partnership with London to develop its Local Industrial Strategy, as part of our aim to create prosperous communities across the country. The Local Industrial Strategy will be long-term, based on clear evidence and aligned to the national Industrial Strategy, identifying local strengths and challenges, future opportunities and the action needed to boost productivity, earning power and competitiveness.

Through programmes operated by the Government-owned British Business Bank they are currently supporting over £5.5bn of finance to over 78,000 SMEs; and since its launch in 2012, the Start-Up Loans programme, part of the British Business Bank, has delivered more than 59,000 loans, totalling over £450m.