Industrial Strategy critical to post Brexit Britain
Karen Briggs, Head of Brexit at KPMG comments on today's Industrial Strategy announcement.
“Brexit offers us all the chance to think about the UK we want and create the conditions to build a highly skilled, innovative, creative economy. This means business will welcome today’s industrial strategy green paper as a first step towards enabling the UK to reach its full global trading potential. There is much that can be done to improve productivity, address the structural weakness or imbalances in our economy, and consolidate the UK’s strength as sector leaders in everything from finance, to automotive, to media and aerospace.
“Our own research shows that, in the UK one of the most important levers policy makers can pull to improve our growth potential is education where we rank behind international rivals such as, Ireland, Germany Spain, Canada, and France. Trade is another area where we need to work much harder to demonstrate the UK is open for business. Thirdly infrastructure, like transport and telecommunications, is a vital area where the UK has a significant weakness compared to some of our peers.
“We applaud the range and scale of the government’s ambition plus the move towards a more active and connected strategy. However, whilst a post-Brexit trading relationship with Europe is being forged it is vital that the government, and not just businesses, properly invests in our ability to trade globally. The acid test will be how quickly everyday companies feel the benefit of this strategy - with access to new support, better infrastructure, improved trading links and readily available skilled labour. Our performance on these issues will ultimately determine how competitive the UK remains on a global stage.”
