In the emerging post-Covid and post-Brexit world, there will be a need for a clear sense of direction from government to address longstanding economic problems such as low productivity growth, a dearth of investment, skill shortages and short-termism in capital markets, as well as the new challenges of Covid-related debt, life outside the EU and climate change.
Industrial strategy, based on active government intervention, is not a new idea but had come to be seen as unfashionable and anti-market. In his RADIX Pamphlet, The Return of Industrial Strategy, the former Business Secretary will argue that it is time for a new Industrial Strategy based on more than manufacturing but also services and data based technologies. Sir Vince makes the case for an ‘entrepreneurial state’ and argues that the
Covid pandemic has created a sense that government, business, the workforce and the research community are much more effective as a cooperating whole than as the sum of their parts. He goes on to set out a new ten point Industrial Strategy plan for the UK, building on his own period in government.
Sir Vince will discuss his proposals with Associate Editor of The Times and Conservative Peer, Lord Finkelstein OBE. A member of the inner circle of more than one Conservative leader, Danny Finkelstein is nevertheless an independently minded and much-admired columnist, who will help us to understand and challenge Sir Vince’s proposals
