Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what plans he has to support manufacturing in each of the countries and regions of the UK through the Industrial Strategy.

Through our Industrial Strategy, we continue to take actions to boost manufacturing growth, across all parts of the UK.

We are investing in innovation, in support for key economic clusters and in physical and digital infrastructure throughout the United Kingdom, including projects in partnership and in collaboration with Devolved Nations. We will ensure that every action we take impacts all four nations whilst respecting the devolution settlement and responsibilities and priorities of Devolved Administrations.

We will increase the National Productivity Investment Fund from £8 billion to £31billion and extend it to 2022-23. We are launching an action plan to unlock over £20 billion of patient capital investment to finance growth in innovative firms over 10 years, including a new £2.5bn Investment Fund for SMEs in the British Business Bank. We are increasing R&D tax credits for large businesses from 11% to 12% from January 2018, as part of the drive to increase R&D investment to 2.4% by 2027.

A further £725m will be invested in the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund across the UK to respond to some of the greatest global challenges and opportunities and support sector productivity. This is in addition to the £246 million that will be invested for the Faraday Battery Challenge to ensure the UK leads the world in the design, development and manufacture of batteries for the electrification of vehicles and £197 million for the manufacture of medicines that will speed up patient access to new drugs and treatments. We will continue to support the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, in which we have invested £300 million over the past 5 years, to support commercialisation of the innovation of new technologies that will be crucial to UK manufacturing success.

We are working with industry to develop strong Manufacturing Sector Deals to boost productivity and competitiveness, including through Automotive and Made Smarter. We will also agree local industrial strategies that build on local strengths and deliver on economic opportunities. As part of these local industrial strategies, we are launching a new competitive £115m Strength in Places Fund to support areas to build on their science and innovation strengths and develop stronger local networks and collaboration between universities, research organisations, LEPs and relevant agencies.