The CBI’s UK competitiveness director, Jordan Cummins, spoke of the need for realism and prioritisation in his keynote address to the UKSPA 40th anniversary conference.
The UK needed to pick its battles in terms of industry and investment, he said.
The country’s biggest business lobby group, representing 150,000 firms, it plays a major role working with government on public policy – most recently the Government’s industrial strategy green paper, Invest 2035.
Referencing polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton and his mission to Antarctica that transformed into an ultimately successful battle for survival, Jordan said it provided lessons in realism, prioritisation and confidence.
The UK was in a time of flux, with big political and economic shifts at home, public and private sector challenges on the pace of technological change, big economic and social threats, climate change and the health agenda.
“And this leaves us as a medium-sized G7 economy quite susceptible to global competition as a result.
“In the spirit of realism, Shackleton’s realism, we have some decisions to make.
“If we’re to compete in the markets of the future we have to start thinking about what type of industrial base we’re going to be competing with.
“Where do we need to lead? Where can we be a first follower? Are we going to benefit from the investments of our G7 peers and focus more on specific parts of the global supply or value chain and accept that we might not have the whole market to play with?
“And then where do we need to be really honest about some of the races that we might need to bow out of. That’s not defeatist. That’s just being honest, focusing on market access and product access for things that other countries have developed and made a success.
Lessons needed to be learnt from the 2017 industrial strategy in terms of what worked and what didn’t. Priorities needed to be set.
“So firstly, how do we collectively drop the baggage that we might all have from previous iterations of industrial science and tech strategies and make this one work.
“Secondly, how do we ready all parts of the economy from charities to campaigns, businesses to universities, to row in behind the big bets that we land on as a result of Invest 2035.
“And then how do we fund those big bets? This is the big question.
And I think importantly for us, the CBI, how do we use our pension funds a bit more strategically? How we deploy some of that capital a bit more readily and at speed?
“We can’t invest big like the EU Green Deal or the Inflation Reduction Act in the US, but we can invest smart in areas where we probably will have quite a lot of distinct competitive advantage.”
There were areas where the UK could take a leading role, he said, including health innovation, the wider tech innovation sector, tackling Net Zero and the ability of the UK’s service sector to the global leader in how we fund the global transition to net zero.
“None of this is easy,” said Jordan. “And just because I think we have the industrial base to do it doesn’t mean that we deserve it. We will have to grab it. But our economy base, our political will, our research ability can be channelled into developing that global pitch.
“I think this prioritisation, this reality, then allows us to have confidence in the way in which we might measure our success.
“I think there is a general view among boardrooms that we might have to just be a little bit honest in the future about where we’re going to go after those big bets.
“But in this moment of change, we can probably ask three open questions about private and public sector collaboration to get us towards growth:
“How much growth is enough for the UK and what should the composition of that growth look like?
“How full should employment be to succeed?
“How much state investment is proportionate?
“We can turn around and say we are in flux, but with a mix of prioritisation and reality and being honest about the races that we might not win, we can really work with this government to make an industrial strategy a success and navigate some of these challenges.”
Author: Simon Penfold
Photography Credit: Ed Nix