UK Modern Industrial Strategy

Johanna Baxter Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Reynolds]

Well, you can’t please everyone, can you? I am depressed just from listening to that question.

On the substance of the hon. Member’s question, he is categorically wrong. Look at what we are proposing for clean energy and what that means for Scotland. Look at the new supercomputer in Edinburgh and what that means for tech and digital. Look at the creative industries and the brilliant opportunities there. Look at the ambition on net zero and all the opportunities for investment in Scotland while cutting industrial energy bills.

Of course, there are parts of the strategy that respect the devolution settlement, as we would expect. Skills is something we can only address in England. The money has gone to the Scottish Government for whatever they want to do to take that forward. That is just the nature of a national industrial strategy that respects the devolved settlement. Independence would be ruinous for the economy. It would shed Scotland’s renewable energy potential from the customer base in England. I believe that at the time of the independence referendum, the SNP wanted a UK energy market anyway. If the hon. Member was being honest and candid, he would recognise that there are things that come from the massive strengths of the Union, come what may. This is a strategy that speaks to building on those opportunities for every bit of the United Kingdom, especially Scotland. Scotland’s economy could be described by the eight high-potential industrial strategy sectors in this document, so let’s have a bit of optimism and hope for Scotland.

[Johanna Baxter (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and the doubling of business investment by 2035. I particularly welcome the £4.3 billion of funding for the advanced manufacturing sector, which will directly benefit the AMIDS—advanced manufacturing innovation district Scotland—factory in Renfrewshire, which is in Scotland. Can the Minister say more about how he will work hand in hand with the devolved Administration in Holyrood to ensure that the delivery of the strategy is tailored to local strengths?

[Jonathan Reynolds]

There is the true voice of Scotland—it is fantastic to hear that optimism and pride for the future.

My hon. Friend is right that there are huge advantages for her constituents in this strategy, which commits the kind of quantum of funding on a long-term, committed basis on R&D, which cuts industrial energy prices and does things across the board. There is so much that is part of the strategy. If I were to break down each of those sectors, I could be here for hours. You would probably get upset with me, Madam Deputy Speaker, if I read out each of the measures that are part of the strategy.

As I said in answer to the previous question, when we are doing a national industrial strategy, we—entirely rightly—have to respect the devolution settlement, and there are some supply-side areas of industrial strategy that I as the UK Secretary of State do not have control over. It is right to reflect that, to build on that where we can and to work in partnership where we can. There are things I would like of the Scottish Government. If we think of Scotland’s tremendous pedigree in civil nuclear power, all that investment is denied to Scotland because of the policies of the Scottish Government. I have my frustrations, but I will work together where we are able to do so to produce the best outcome for Scotland.