How Does Britain Fight Its Way Back

I have been listening to a podcast of an RSA lecture by Lord Mandelson, Secretary of State for BERR, and I have been thoroughly impressed by his delivery, his content, his speeches. to be found on the

Here's the podcast of his RSA speech can be found here... and the text

Here are some extracts from "How Does Britain Fight its way Back. " BERR website

Industrial Activism

But these opportunities will not just fall into our lap. We will come under relentless pressure as others continue to develop their own strengths. And that’s where the role of government becomes important. Private enterprise will drive our success. Competition will keep us lean and innovative. It will be the million small choices of the market that define and refine the technologies we use and the way we do things. There is no case for British protectionism and none for economic nationalism. British companies thrive in, and depend on, an open European and global market, and the same is true for any European country or company.

But the competitiveness of a company is not just a measure of the quality of its product. It is not just a measure of its entrepreneurialism and innovation. It is also a measure of the infrastructure, skilled workers and enterprise environment that it draws on. We must make sure British companies and British workers are equipped for the opportunities ahead. If the end is high-value added jobs and growth in the UK, we have to will the means. Government has to provide the regulatory certainty, clear procurement rules, the predictable market framework in which the private sector can then make its own decisions.

We’re committed to British manufacturing as part of a balanced British economy for the future. Now we need to make the UK the best place in the world to help build the next generation of single aisle passenger jets, or produce civil nuclear technology, or design semiconductors. And the list goes on. We’ve built a mix of investment and procurement policies that have made the UK a leader in civilian and military aerospace design and manufacture. It’s time to secure those strengths for the next decade, and to do the same, for example, in rail transport and low carbon vehicles.

We’re committed to British life sciences. Now I am working with Alan Johnson and Paul Drayson to make the UK the world’s leading location to carry out life science research and develop the drugs of the future. That will include a cast-iron commitment to a stable regulatory environment and the research and development facilities that enable companies to make the long term investments necessary to produce the next generation of innovative and targeted medicines.

We know that digital infrastructure will be central to our economy in this century. What Stephen Carter is setting out in his Digital Britain work is how we get broadband to practically every home and business in the UK in just the next few years.

What happened at Lindsey Refinery last month is a reminder that alongside a commitment to mobility and fair treatment for workers in the EU, we must also ensure that British workers possess the complex skills and productivity that they will need to compete in the years ahead. John Denham is working on precisely this kind of strategic skills strategy.

We depend on the UK being the best place in the world to build innovative companies, and that means looking at the capacity of UK financial markets to produce the equity they need, especially in the regions and in a tough credit market. It’s with that in mind that we have been developing ideas for a new version of the ICFC – the body that became 3i - to leverage long-term capital for growing firms. This could build on the £75million Capital for Enterprise Fund launched by the government, for which we have now recruited fund managers to channel risk capital to innovative companies through the downturn.

We’ve regulated in this country to drive the demand for low carbon goods and services. Now we need to think about supply, making the UK the best place in the world to build a low carbon business, develop civil nuclear technology or recruit expertise in energy efficiency or low carbon finance. On Friday, Ed Miliband and I will start consulting on how we do this through a low carbon industrial strategy.

I’ve called these important strands of work “industrial activism”. What drives my thinking is a simple challenge: to use the strategic role of government better. We’ve too often devalued our ability to build a stronger private sector through activist public policy. Deferred to private sector expertise without the balancing assumption that government must have a parallel expertise in shaping the world in which private enterprise operates. We’ve been so spooked – often rightly – by the very idea of ‘state intervention’ that we’ve been too cautious in asking what more we can do as a country to equip ourselves to compete in a global economy and to bring high value jobs here. Across government, in everything we do.

We should never make a major regulatory or public procurement decision in the UK – on transport, energy or anything else - without asking whether there are supply chain opportunities for UK-based companies to compete for. And if there are, and if it makes long term economic sense for the UK to compete for them, we have to equip ourselves to do so. Without closing our markets and while safeguarding the taxpayer’s long term value for money. Others ask these questions routinely. In Britain, we don’t ask them enough. In my view, this is part of the social contract for a globalised economy. Unless we demonstrate the domestic advantages of an open global economy, we will lose public support for globalization at home.