Why Local Industrial Strategies must be the driving force behind the Industrial Strategy
Why Local Industrial Strategies must be the driving force behind the Industrial Strategy
This weekend, our Manufacturing Policy Manager, Ben Carpenter Merritt, featured in the Sunday Telegraph’s supplement on the Industrial Strategy (read his piece here).
In it, Ben argued that the success of the Industrial Strategy will rely heavily on the successful implementation of Local Industrial Strategies that draw on the power of manufacturing to feed local economies – improving productivity and employment by making the most of local strengths to address national challenges.
With the five grand challenges in mind (AI and the Data Economy, Clean Growth, the Future of Mobility and the Ageing Society), Local Industrial Strategies are being developed across the UK, with the trailblazer regions of the West Midlands and Manchester City region to be unveiled in March 2019 and the remaining 36 to be released over the following year.
The Local Industrial Strategies are a fantastic opportunity for people working and leading businesses locally to address regional challenges in a way that works for the local economy and population. Manufacturing currently makes up 10% of UK output, and growing the sector is an ideal way to create highly-paid, highly-skilled jobs and help regions grow through the positive economic knock-on effect that this would have.
The All-Party Parliamentary Manufacturing Group is now in the early stages of establishing a project looking at local industrial strategies as they are publicised over the next year, and providing support to ensure that as each new wave is released, they are a clear improvement on those that went before.
