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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what estimate his Department has made of the proportion of UK factories that used robots in the manufacturing process in each year since 2010.

The information requested is not available centrally from official sources. However, according to the International Federation of Robotics, the UK ranks 22nd in the world with a robot density of 71 units per 10,000 employees, slightly under the global average of 74 units.

The industry-led initiative, Made Smarter Review, has highlighted how UK manufacturing can be transformed through the adoption of industrial digital technology – including that of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence – boosting UK manufacturing by £455bn, reducing CO₂ emissions by 4.5%, and creating a net gain of 175,000 jobs. Government has pledged to make the UK a global leader in industrial digitalisation, and has committed up to £141m to the Made Smarter programme.