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Greg Clark, the former Conservative business secretary whose industrial strategy was binned by Rishi Sunak, is to take up a new role advising the Labour government on how to boost the economy.
As chancellor, Sunak scrapped Clark’s industrial strategy in March 2021, a move that surprised some of those working in Boris Johnson’s Number 10. “The Treasury blindsided us,” said one official.
Now Clark has joined the government’s 16-member industrial strategy advisory council, which will hold its inaugural meeting on Tuesday at Lloyd’s of London.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves and business secretary Jonathan Reynolds will attend the first meeting, anxious to show that the government has a growth strategy after weeks of deteriorating economic data.
Reeves and Reynolds are promoting an industrial strategy that will focus on eight sectors that they believe will generate the most growth in the coming years and which they hope will attract inward investment.
The sectors identified are advanced manufacturing, clean energy, creative industries, defence, digital and technologies, financial services, life sciences and professional and business services.
The government said the new advisory council would use their first meeting to discuss investment, innovation and breaking down barriers to growth in key sectors.
Clare Barclay, a senior Microsoft executive, will chair the council, whose members are drawn from business, academia and trade unions.
They include Kate Bell of the Trades Union Congress; Dame Anita Frew, chair of Rolls-Royce; Greg Jackson, chief executive of Octopus Energy; Sir John Kingman, chair of Legal & General and Barclays UK and Baroness Shriti Vadera, chair of Prudential.
Reeves said: “We’re bringing together the brightest minds to inform our industrial strategy and deliver growth that will improve living standards and that can be felt across every corner of the UK.”
The concept of industrial strategy became associated in the UK with economic decline in the 1970s, with successive governments attempting to prop up failing companies.
Reeves and Reynolds want the new strategy to back successful sectors, supporting geographical clusters and providing a focus for efforts to attract inward investment.
The advisory council is intended to offer independent advice to ministers as it develops what they call a “modern industrial strategy”. It will take evidence from business, academia, devolved governments and local leaders to develop the new policy.