Lord Leong (Lab)

I thank the Lord for that question. He makes several very interesting observations. The reason we have published this industrial strategy is what I mentioned earlier about the global trading environment, but we also have a very clear goal. We want to drive growth. I know many noble Lords have mentioned it, but it is still the number one mission of this Government, and we can achieve that only by better and increased investment. The noble Lord is right. Previous Governments have published investment strategies, but why is this investment strategy different? Past growth plans have often been felt by businesses as being done for them, so it looks as though government knows better and this is what the industrial strategy is for, whereas with this industrial strategy, we work with businesses every step of the way. We have meetings with business representative organisations—in fact, I have learned a new word, “BROs”; we work with trade unions and investors so that this strategy is not only a government strategy but a whole-of-business strategy. That is the first difference. The second difference is that we have listened to the needs of businesses, the need for long-term certainty. Every business that I have spoken to wants three things: certainty, stability and less regulation. That is what the Government are trying to solve through their strategy to reduce regulation by 25%. This is still very much a work in progress, but it is what we are aiming for. We hope that this strategy is different from previous strategies.