Evidence to the Business and Trade Committee Industrial Strategy Inquiry

This submission draws on evidence from an ESRC funded research project. The project asks whether the UK’s governing institutions are fit for purpose in the 21st century, particularly in terms of their capacity to tackle the UK’s productivity puzzle. It seeks to understand why UK productivity performance has been poor over the last two decades, and why disparities in productivity across regions have proved so enduring.
Our focus has been on the policy sectors of skills, research & development, and transport and to date, we have undertaken 61 interviews with practitioners across four English regions: Greater London, Greater Manchester, the North East and Oxfordshire-Cambridgeshire. The questions posed relate to economic growth and productivity, with an emphasis on the manner in which governance institutions – both national and regional – facilitate or impede economic growth and how they might be reformed to become more effective. We are at the mid-point in our data gathering and about to undertake interviews across central government, drawing on the evidence we have gathered from beyond Whitehall. This Inquiry therefore offers a timely opportunity to provide a unique series of insights into the current Industrial Strategy from the perspective of those who will be tasked in delivering on it.