
Chancellor Rachel Reeves today vowed to go “further and faster” to kickstart the UK economy, as she unveiled new plans to deliver the Oxford-Cambridge Growth Corridor that will boost the UK economy by up to £78 billion by 2035 according to industry experts.
Speaking to an audience of business chiefs at Siemens in North Oxfordshire this morning, the Chancellor set out the Government’s latest set of reforms to kickstart economic growth and drive up living standards across the UK by driving investment, getting Britain building and tackling regulatory barriers. This included the announcement that the Government supports and is inviting proposals for a third runway at Heathrow.
The Chancellor told regional and business leaders that economic growth is the Government’s number one mission. She said that Britain’s economy has “huge potential” and is at the “forefront of some of the most exciting developments in the world, including artificial intelligence and life sciences.”
She also backed the redevelopment of Old Trafford and reviewed the Green Book - the Government’s guidance on appraisal - in order to support decisions on public investment across the country, including outside London and the South East.
The speech comes after the Chancellor last week announced a new approach for the National Wealth Fund (NWF) and the Office for Investment (OfI) to work with local leaders to build pipelines of incoming investment and projects linked to regional growth priorities. This included the NWF trialling strategic partnerships in Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, the West Midlands, and Glasgow City Region and the OfI piloting an approach in the Liverpool City Region and the North East Combined Authority to connect their regions to central Government and industry expertise in order to unlock private investment.
Taking the right decisionsThe Chancellor said: “Low growth is not our destiny, but that economic growth will not come without a fight. Without a Government that is on the side of working people, willing to take the right decisions now to change our country’s course for the better.”
The Government is also assessing options for privately financing the Lower Thames Crossing to which will improve connectivity and will also designate new Marine Protected Areas to enable new offshore wind projects to go ahead, while protecting the marine environment, creating 1,000s of jobs in the offshore wind sector in areas like East Anglia and Yorkshire.
Rachel Reeves also revealed that the Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds will visit India next month to relaunch talks on a free-trade agreement and bilateral investment treaty.
Tony Hague at PP Control & Automation (PP C&A), said: “Nothing in the Chancellor’s speech today was overtly negative, in fact the language was positive, and businesses will welcome the genuine change in tone and direction to speed up investment, remove bureaucracy, and press ahead with an industrial strategy. It feels like Rachel Reeves and her team have finally woken up to the fact that talking down the economy is not the best driver of growth!
“I also welcome the firm focus on national Government and local councils working more closely together with business, and the wider community will acknowledge the potential economic benefits of the proposed infrastructure projects. However, as with any strategy and political speeches, they can communicate all the right signals, but the question remains on how the grand ideas will actually be delivered. That is the overarching sentiment from today’s speech — promising words but talk is cheap. Let’s keep an eye on the execution.”
PP C&A, is one of the UK’s leading strategic manufacturing outsourcing specialists, working with more than 20 of the world’s largest machinery builders. His company employs 200 people at its ‘state of the art’ factory in the West Midlands.