Industrial Strategy ‘at risk’, says CBI
The CBI’s chief UK policy director Matthew Fell will tell an audience of business leaders in Lincoln today that the Industrial Strategy is “at risk” and faces the prospect of being kicked into the long grass.
Fell will be speaking at Doddington Hall, where he is expected to call for the East Midlands to “come together.”
On the industrial strategy being at risk, he will say: “LEPs across the East Midlands have put two years of work into these strategies. Now we need government to deliver them.
“But worryingly, the recent change of government coupled with Brexit – sucking the oxygen from other priorities means that plans for regional growth are stalling.
“The Industrial Strategy is at risk of being kicked in to the long grass or failing altogether.”
Fell will also address the disparities between the East and West Midlands and London, noting that the East Midlands currently receives “the lowest government spending on economic development of any region in the country”, and discuss the CBI’s conversations with Secretary of State Robert Jenrick, who has been “very open” to the body’s ideas about devolution.
He will conclude by saying: “Now is the time for the whole of the East Midlands to come together. And show the UK that when it comes to business, while what’s outside might look exciting it’s what’s in the middle that counts.”
