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Pat McFadden MP, Minister for Business, Innovation and Skills
Didcot, 30 June 2009
Thank you. It’s great to be here. I just want to set out for a few minutes why we, as a Government, have produced this document Building Britain’s Future. And I want to speak in particular about why the Government has brought together in one Department these issues of business, innovation and skills. The starting point really is the economic circumstances of the last couple of years. It has obviously, in every part of the country, been a difficult time.
We have seen people lose their jobs. We have seen the greatest contraction in world output and trade for decades. We’ve seen the near collapse of the banking system –putting in peril, had it been allowed to happen, people’s savings, the credit, the oil that makes the economy run. So it has been a very difficult time not only here but right across the world. And we have to ask ourselves in the midst of this – what is government’s job here? What is the role of the state? It’s a fundamental and important question for every government of whatever political colour when facing up to these issues.
And our answer really is two-fold. We have to support the economy today and do what we can to make the recession as short and as shallow as possible. That doesn’t mean that we can protect every worker or every business from the effects of this. I don’t believe any government, certainly no government in an open, outward looking trading economy such as our own could say they could do that. But we certainly have to do what we can to support the economy at the moment. And that’s what we’ve been doing in a number of ways.
But there’s a second side of this coin and that’s really what I want to concentrate on today. Which is how do you shape the economy of the future? What do you, as a state, have to say about the areas where you want Britain to excel? What do you have to say about how you’re going to equip people with the skills needed to make sure that the opportunities created by economic change can be fulfilled? And that’s really at the core of this document Building Britain’s Future. There are other important areas that we've heard about in terms of public services and so on but a lot of it is really about shaping this economy of the future.
And so where better to come, in some ways, than the visit that we were on about half an hour ago to the Diamond Light Synchrotron nearby? Leading edge, technological and scientific research with applications in medicine, in engineering and in pure fundamental research. And it’s not something that markets alone, that companies alone, would have created. It happened, on time and on budget, because as a country we took a decision that that was the kind of facility that we needed for the future.
Now that was a forward looking and innovative decision that we took some years ago. We’re just beginning, we’re just in the early stages of seeing the fruition of that investment. I met not only the people running Diamond Light today, but also companies that have located here precisely because that facility is here. Companies who told me their productivity had increased because of the brain power and the power to carry out experiments on a much faster and greater scale than would have been possible before that facility was there.
And when we look elsewhere we can see similar areas where it makes sense to say we, as a country, want to make sure we’re at the head of the game in these areas. If we think for example about the low carbon economy. About how we heat our homes, how we generate our energy, how we transport ourselves it is quite clear that, in a generation from now, these things are going to be done in a completely different way.
So again the question we ask is what role is there for Government in this, if one at all? Now we believe there is one. So when it comes to the low carbon economy we want to make sure that Britain is there. Be it in low carbon vehicles, be it in the new generation of nuclear power, be it in other areas. For example, we’ve set aside a Strategic Investment Fund, a proportion of which is precisely for the low carbon economy. The total fund is £750 million and about a third of that is specifically for low carbon research – for low carbon projects backed by ourselves and by the Department of Energy and Climate Change. And that is precisely the kind of area that we want the country to succeed in.
A couple of weeks ago we produced a Digital Britain strategy because we also know that the information economy is absolutely vital to our country’s future. And we know that, left to itself, the market alone will not hook up every house with broadband. It may provide for the big conurbations but not for all of it. And, as a country, we don’t want to see a nation of digital haves and digital have nots because this is going to be as fundamental in the future as having an electricity or a water supply in your home. So again we made a decision that, when it comes to the digital economy, we want Britain to be in the forefront. These are the kind of things that Building Britain’s Future is about.
And there’s one other thing that I’d like to mention specifically in the document. That is the idea of establishing a £150 million Innovation Fund from Government. It is geared to levering in a total investment of up to £1billion over the next ten years in a venture capital environment. This will mean we back the best technologies, the leading research. It will ensure we are better in future at taking the great creativity and the great fundamental research that we have in the United Kingdom and bringing it to market – brought to fruition by aspiring young companies. We believe there is a market gap there. We believe that, working together with the private sector, we can do more to promote companies in those fields and more to back them. And that was an important part of the document that we published yesterday.
Now I know that politics in recent months has been fixated on other issues. I think everybody involved in politics has to acknowledge that the system must be changed. That the public need confidence that politicians of all parties are trying to serve them rather than pursuing any self interest. And that’s something that we’ve got to do. But we’ve also got to get back to governing and facing up to the issues facing the country. And that’s what this document is about too. It’s about saying that there are critical issues for us as a country in the future, be they on low carbon, on digital, on venture capital for young aspiring companies and taking a view that we have an active role in supporting that in the future.
So when we talk about Building Britain’s Future we’re not talking about simply rewinding the economy to some time in 2006 before the financial crisis hit. We’re actually talking about seeing where the curve of change in the 21st century is going and making sure that Britain is at the leading edge of that curve. That’s what the document is all about.
I’ve talked about the Innovation Fund. There are other pledges in this publication about social housing, about training places for young people. We don’t want to see another generation who lose their jobs and end up not getting a second chance. This document covers many areas. But the area that I really want to concentrate on today is Britain’s economic future because we’ve all got a part to play in creating this.
And here, in this region, you’ve got so much that is already happening in these fields and so much that can contribute – not only to the immediate area – but right around the country. What we want to make sure is that excellence like that is backed by government so it can grow and prosper and the whole country can benefit from it.
Thank you very much.
ENDS
