UK Industrial Strategy Roundtable

Prosper was delighted to help host a roundtable debate in Edinburgh with the senior civil servant guiding the UK Government’s ten‑year plan to boost investment, productivity and innovation.

Sam Lister is director-general for industrial strategy at the Department for Business & Trade and came to Queen Elizabeth House to discuss progress so far and opportunities for Scotland.

With the latest data showing a subdued economy at the start of this year and the war in Iran increasingly likely to cause an economic shock, the focus was once again on growth.

The UK Government’s Modern Industrial Strategy is its flagship policy to increase business investment in growth sectors and places. Launched last year, it was widely welcomed but, as our members tell us repeatedly, a good strategy is only step one – it’s really all about delivery.

The focus of the discussion was on how technology and innovation in the Central Belt can create a globally-competitive region which drives Scottish and UK growth. We heard about opportunities for Scotland’s existing industries to pull through cutting-edge technologies and innovation from the region’s universities and innovative companies.

Many of our opportunities are ‘horizontal’ between sectors rather than vertical within sectors, so collaboration between institutions and sectors, and agile regulation, are all the more critical. This also requires a mixed model which drives scale-up investment at all levels – from small innovative enterprises with new solutions to large multinationals which Scotland needs to retain.

Members at the event were interested in hearing what the UK Government wants from clusters and Mr Lister, a former journalist at The Times, emphasised the importance of evidence of leveraging private investment and showing some early impacts.

We were also joined by Scottish Government officials and talked about the importance of policy coherence and collaboration across governments and publicly-owned funding institutions.

Mr Lister said that the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, would be saying more on Industrial Strategy in a major speech next week. Meanwhile, Prosper will continue to champion the strengths of Scotland’s sectors and regions.”