Anne-Marie Trevelyan, MP for Berwick-upon-Tweed, has welcomed a green paper on a new modern Industrial Strategy which will support businesses in Northumberland to grow and continue to create more high skilled, high paid jobs for local people.
The Industrial Strategy will ensure everyone in the north east can benefit from success through ten ‘pillars’ – including investing in science, research and innovation, and upgrading infrastructure – that underpin a new approach and will identify all of the new opportunities across our economy. This strategy will create the conditions where the winners can emerge and grow in different types of business across Northumberland.
The modern Industrial Strategy will benefit the north east and proposes an additional £49.7million for the north east local enterprise partnership, to help deliver ten pillars of the strategy which includes investment in science, improvement of procurement processes and a range of measures to support businesses and encourage investment.
Commenting, Anne-Marie said:
"This is an important step in building a modern, dynamic Industrial Strategy that will deliver more high skilled, high wage jobs and improve living standards and drive economic growth across the region. Local businesses and workers have the chance to contribute to this vision and submit their views to help us create a high-skilled economy in Northumberland where businesses can grow and more jobs are created.
"This strategy will ensure we are building on the improvements to vital infrastructure such as the dualling of the A1 and steps already taken to encourage businesses to locate here, including the new Enterprise Zone in Berwick. Combined with continuing improvements to our rural broadband network, this new strategy ensures a bright future for Northumberland.”
The 10 pillars of the strategy are:
1. Investing in science, research and innovation
We must become a more innovative economy and do more to commercialise our world leading science base to drive growth across the UK.
2. Developing skills
We must help people and businesses to thrive by:
- ensuring everyone has the basic skills needed in a modern economy
- building a new system of technical education to benefit the half of young people who do not go to university
- boosting STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) skills, digital skills and numeracy, and
- by raising skill levels in lagging areas
3. Upgrading infrastructure
We must upgrade our standards of performance on digital, energy, transport, water and flood defence infrastructure, and better align central government infrastructure investment with local growth priorities.
4. Supporting businesses to start and grow
We must ensure that businesses across the UK can access the finance and management skills they need to grow; and we must create the right conditions for companies to invest for the long-term.
5. Improving procurement
We must use strategic government procurement to drive innovation and enable the development of UK supply chains.
6. Encouraging trade and inward investment policy
Government policy can help boost productivity and growth across our economy, including by increasing competition and helping to bring new ways of doing things to the UK.
7. Delivering affordable energy and clean growth
We need to keep costs down for businesses, and secure the economic benefits of the transition to a low-carbon economy.
8. Cultivating world-leading sectors
We must build on our areas of competitive advantage, and help new sectors to flourish, in many cases challenging existing institutions and incumbents.
9. Driving growth across the whole country
We will create a framework to build on the particular strengths of different places and address factors that hold places back – whether it is investing in key infrastructure projects to encourage growth, increasing skill levels, or backing local innovation strengths.
10. Creating the right institutions to bring together sectors and places
We will consider the best structures to support people, industries and places. In some places and sectors there may be missing institutions which we could create, or existing ones we could strengthen, be they local civic or educational institutions, trade associations or financial networks.
As part of the visit to the north-west, the government is also announcing a cash boost of £556 million for the Northern Powerhouse to help create jobs, support businesses and encourage growth.
Goole Intermodal Terminal linking rail, sea and road, a 21st century conference centre in Blackpool, and a new innovation fund for Manchester and Cheshire businesses are just some of the locally-chosen projects set to benefit over the next few years. These are alongside many others which improve educational attainment, create jobs, build homes or improve infrastructure.
This latest award of local growth funding is on top of £2.9 billion of Growth Deal funding already awarded to the 11 Local Enterprise Partnerships in the region – an investment which provides targeted financial support to locally-determined projects in order to unlock growth.