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This, my third Expenditure Plans Report
for the Department of Trade and Industry, describes the Department’s
activities and achievements over the past year. In particular, it describes
our progress against the current Public Service Agreement (PSA) targets
and sets out our new PSA targets and spending priorities for 2001-04.
We are living through a period of massive
change: new technology and competitive pressures can be seen in all our
daily lives. The role of Government is to work with individuals, communities
and businesses to help them create opportunity through change. By building
on the foundations of economic success and developing further the key
building blocks, we can achieve our long term economic ambitions and close
the productivity gap with our main competitors.
February 2001 saw the publication of the
White Paper Opportunity for all in a world of change, which outlines
our active industrial policy based on enterprise, skills and innovation.
The White Paper sets out how the Government can help businesses and individuals
anticipate and respond to change: working to equip individuals with the
skills, abilities and know-how they need; building capacity in all communities
and regions to enable them to grasp opportunities; ensuring that investment
occurs in the modern infrastructure needed to allow businesses and individuals
to innovate and compete; increasing the possibilities for people to transform
their ideas into successful businesses and ensuring markets operate effectively
and fairly in the best interests of consumers; and strengthening European
and global frameworks to maximise opportunity and wealth creation. These
themes also ran through many of the Department’s other achievements
over the last year. I have highlighted a few of these below.
Improving skills, abilities and know-how
- To ensure that the UK continues to
attract the best students to scientific training, we are increasing
the basic stipend for PhD students from £6,800 per year in 2000-01
to £9,000 in 2003-04.
- We launched a £10 million joint
scheme with the Wolfson Foundation to recruit, reward and develop a
number of the very best researchers from around the world and the UK
in key areas of science.
- We supported ‘Enterprise Insight’,
launched by the Prime Minister to promote entrepreneurship among young
people.
- We announced the Second Round of the
Science Enterprise Fund, providing £15 million to stimulate scientific
entrepreneurship and incorporate enterprise teaching in science and
engineering curricula.
Building prosperous regions and communities
- We announced a £75 million incubator
fund and introduced the £50 million Innovative Clusters Fund to
support the development of business clusters and incubators in the English
regions.
- We refocused the Regional Selective
Assistance scheme towards high quality, knowledge based projects which
provide skilled jobs.
- We awarded £15 million under
the Development Fund element of the Phoenix Fund to support innovative
projects which address social exclusion by promoting enterprise.
- We lifted the stricter gas consents
policy and introduced the UK Coal Operating Aid Scheme.
- We are investing up to £250
million in the T900 and T600 engines being developed by Rolls-Royce
for the A380 (formerly A3XX) and B747X aircraft, creating 20,000 jobs
in Rolls-Royce and its suppliers.
Investing for innovation
- In the White Paper Excellence and
Opportunity for the 21st century we set out the Government’s
commitments to ensure that science works for the benefit of all, to
invest in science infrastructure and leading edge research, and to encourage
the commercial application of science.
- We launched ‘UK online for business’
to provide help to businesses for them to succeed with
e-commerce.
- We launched the £15 million
LINK Applied Genomics programme, the largest LINK programme ever, complemented
by the new £25 million Harnessing Genomics programme to help industry
apply this research
- We established the Science Research
Infrastructure Fund, providing an additional £1 billion science
infrastructure investment and keeping Britain at the forefront of scientific
research.
- We published the DTI Sustainable Development
Strategy and contributed to a new £30 million Sustainable Technologies
Initiative to help businesses integrate sustainability into their processes
and products.
Fostering enterprise
- We launched the Small Business Service
on 1 April 2000 to act as a strong voice for small firms at the heart
of Government and improve the quality and coherence of support for small
businesses.
- We consulted widely on a new framework
for supporting small businesses in the UK, leading to the launch by
the Prime Minister of Think Small First – Supporting smaller
businesses in the United Kingdom – a challenge for Government.
- Royal Assent was obtained for the
Utilities Act 2000, updating energy regulation to put consumers at the
centre and establishing the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority and
the Gas and Electricity Consumer Council, ‘Energywatch’.
- We launched Consumer Support Networks
to draw together local advice and information from Trading Standards
Organisations, Citizens Advice Bureaux and others.
- We published the Green Paper Work
and Parents: Competitiveness and Choice proposing steps to give
more help to parents and greater support to the businesses employing
them.
- We increased the main rate for the
National Minimum Wage from £3.60 to £3.70 per hour, with
a further increase to £4.10 per hour announced for October 2001.
Strengthening global connections
- UK Trade & Investment and UK Trade & Investment were
launched as operating units of British Trade International with the
aims of enhancing the competitiveness of companies in the UK through
overseas sales and investments, and of maintaining a high level of quality
foreign direct investment.
- We pressed ahead with European economic
reform, following the actions agreed at the March 2000 Lisbon Special
European Summit.
The themes of the White Paper Opportunity
for all in a world of change will set the Department’s future
direction. This Report describes the initiatives which I plan to implement
to achieve the aims set out in the White Paper and to meet the challenging
targets that we have set ourselves.
The Rt Hon Stephen Byers MP
Secretary of State for Trade and Industry
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