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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what actions they are taking in response to reports of slowing growth in the services, manufacturing, and construction sectors.

Through our Industrial Strategy, we will make sure that we are using all the tools we have to stimulate growth throughout the UK. We will further reduce corporation tax from 19 per cent to 17 per cent by 2020 and increase R&D tax credits for large businesses from 11% to 12% from January 2018; whilst we have also increased the permanent level of the Annual Investment Allowance to £200,000 from this year. Through the National Productivity Investment Fund, £31bn is being invested into key productivity-enhancing areas such as infrastructure, R&D and housing - increasing investment in research and development to 2.4% of GDP, an extra £80bn over 10 years.

We are working closely with UK industry to create the right conditions for competitive, world leading manufacturing businesses to flourish and grow across the UK. We have invested over £300m in the last five years in the High Value Manufacturing Catapult to support the commercialisation of the innovation and new technologies. We have invested £246m for the Faraday Challenge to ensure the UK leads the world in the design, development and manufacture of batteries for the electrification of vehicles.

The Construction Sector Deal - supported by £170 million of government investment and £250 million of match funding from industry - brings together the construction, manufacturing, energy and digital sectors in a new hub to commercialise technologies capable of building assets which are both cost effective and energy efficient.

One of the next Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund programmes includes £20m for next generation services. As technologies like artificial intelligence and data analytics become ubiquitous, we need to ensure UK service sectors are primed. Pioneer funding will help service industries to identify how the application of these technologies can transform their operations. This will help to set UK service industries at the forefront of developing and using innovation. All wave 2 programmes are subject to final business case when further details on funding will be made available.