The UK has recently had a passive approach to Industrial Strategy, largely based on the belief that the market will find the best solutions, so government intervention is not required. That has led to a rapid decline in industrial production in the UK, and hence limited the opportunity to capture value from UK innovation. However, our recent work in the UK FIRES programme, summarised in the ‘Absolute Zero’ report that was debated in the House of Lords on 6 February 2020, reveals an extraordinary opportunity: a proactive national industrial strategy could stimulate rapid domestic growth in the industries we will certainly need to meet our legal zero emissions commitments. Our emissions targets are cutting edge, and could be the basis for a significant industrial renaissance, provided government policy is sufficiently pro-active to support the private sector in rapid re-tooling and transformation.
