Interesting to see today's report from the House of Commons Business and Trade Committee calling for the Industrial Strategy to be ‘funded to work' and outlining the barriers to growth.

In line with the findings from our own report, the Committee cites the following barriers "holding back growth, deterring investment and hampering the spread of cutting-edge business practice."

• High energy costs
• A broken system of public procurement;
• Chronic skills gaps;
• Blocks to the diffusion and commercialisation of innovation;
• Trouble accessing scale-up finance;
• Over-centralisation of decision-making; and
• the sheer complexity of key institutions

Amongst their recommendations they also call for more support for start ups, spinouts and SMEs all things we champion. Specifically,

• Multi-year framework contracts for SMEs
• Setting targets for how much public procurement spend goes direct to SMEs (which made up around 99% of UK businesses in 2024)
• Providing ways to unlock finance that allows startups, spinouts and other organisation to scale up - with "far too many promising companies moving to the US and other countries", and
• for the regulatory landscape to be simplified - something we've called for in our industry reports

We agree the Industrial Strategy is a "once in a century opportunity for the British economy" and hope these challenges and solutions will be addressed when published.

Published: 06-06-2025