May chaired the first meeting of the “Cabinet Committee on Economy and Industrial Strategy” in her Downing Street offices, bringing together the heads of 11 other ministries to set out her vision for a state-boosted industrial renaissance.
“The prime minister emphasized that the objective of the government’s new industrial strategy should be to deliver an economy that works for all,” a spokesman said in a statement issued after the meeting.
After a referendum campaign that revealed dissatisfaction in many of Britain’s struggling post-industrial regions, May is pitching a plan to reunite the country and strengthen her grip on power by raising the prospects of those who she casts as “hard-working people”.
The 23 June vote to leave the European Union has raised serious questions about the future of the world’s fifth largest economy, with some surveys indicating a recession, a hit to consumer confidence and a possible fall in investment.
The challenge is to find a formula that arrests a decades-long decline in Britain’s manufacturing sector by helping firms tackle the challenges posed by globalization without blunting the market forces that make them competitive.
The meeting focused on ways the government could support growth in different areas of the country, the spokesman said.
Finance minister Philip Hammond told the meeting that by reducing the productivity gap between the rest of the country and London and the southeast, economic output could rise by 9 percent, adding over 150 billion pounds to the economy.
Ministers agreed the strategy should also be focused on “playing to the country’s strengths while also creating an economy that is open to new industries, particularly those that will shape our lives in the future,” the spokesman said.
That push that could help carmakers such as Jaguar Land Rover and Nissan and aerospace industry leaders like BAE Systems to weather the Brexit storm.
It is also geared to support the creation of new technology firms such as microchip designer ARM, which was sold to Japan’s SoftBank last month for $32 billion.
Experts say recent efforts at implementing closer cooperation between the state and industries such as carmakers and aerospace have been partially successful, but need to be scaled up and placed at the heart of government thinking.
