(Secretary of State for
Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy): Our
modern Industrial Strategy is a long-term plan to boost
productivity and earning power for people throughout the country.
Since 2010, local leaders, working in partnership with
government, have delivered historic City Deals with Greater
Birmingham and Solihull, Coventry and Warwickshire and the Black
Country. Having secured significant Growth Deal funding, the West
Midlands then came together as one to capitalise on these
important new powers and establish new leadership through two
successful Devolution Deals.
Building on these strong foundations, we set out in the modern
Industrial Strategy to work in partnership with places to develop
Local Industrial Strategies. Local Industrial Strategies are
central to our aim of creating prosperous communities across the
country. They are being developed locally and agreed with
government. They are long-term, based on clear evidence and
aligned to the modern Industrial Strategy.
Today we launched the first of these strategies – the West
Midlands Local Industrial Strategy. This has been developed
locally by the West Midlands Combined Authority, led by Mayor
, supported by the Local
Enterprise Partnerships and agreed with government.
This Strategy sets out how, in partnership with West Midlands
local leaders, we will work to deliver on a range of commitments
including:
- delivering on our Future of Mobility Grand Challenge, which
aims to be at the forefront of the development of cleaner, safer,
easier and more reliable future modes of transport, cementing the
West Midlands’ position as the UK’s automotive heartlands;
- playing a leading role in the UK’s trials of connected
autonomous vehicles, with the West Midlands aiming to deploy the
first fully operational connected autonomous vehicles in advance
of the 2022 Commonwealth Games;
- driving investment into electric vehicle manufacturing in the
region, completing the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre and
maximising the impact of the Faraday Battery Challenge;
- putting the West Midlands at the heart of transport
innovation in the UK by delivering the UK’s first large-scale 5G
testbed; and
- helping meet the Artificial Intelligence and Data Grand
Challenge by supporting the development of a West Midlands
Translational Medicine and Med-Tech commission to accelerate the
‘lab to patient’ ecosystem.
The West Midlands is a global force and a major part of the UK
economy, generating £99bn of GVA — five per cent of UK output.
The region is growing fast, with output up 27 per cent over the
past five years. A record number of people are in work and the
lowest number are out of work. Productivity is increasing too, at
twice the rate of the UK in 2017-18, while carbon emissions have
reduced by 18 per cent over the last five years – showing that
while we grow our economy we can reduce the impact on our planet.
The West Midlands is a region in renaissance. Together, this work
sets the long-term future for how the West Midlands can fully
realise its potential.
