Peter Kyle’s speech at the techUK Conference

Speech delivered by Secretary of State for Science, Innovation, and Technology, Peter Kyle, at the techUK Conference on Monday 10 March.

Normally, it takes half an hour to get blood samples from the Guy's Hospital, in London Bridge, to the lab over the road at St Thomas' for testing.

Like anything in medicine, even that small delay can make a massive difference.

Between a quick recovery and weeks – months, even - spent bed-bound on a hospital ward.

The team at Guy's are acutely aware of that fact. So – working with two innovative firms – Apian, a British start-up founded by NHS doctors, and Wing, a global drone delivery company – they decided to find a solution.

Fed up with being stuck in traffic jams, they're using drones to deliver blood samples for high-risk patients who suffer from bleeding disorders like haemophilia. Instead of half an hour, delivery takes just 2 minutes.

Make no mistake. This will save lives.

The Civil Aviation Authority's decision to extend the trial today is brilliant news.

Too often, though, pioneering projects like these can't get off the ground in Britain. Or they flounder in the face of bureaucratic headwinds. Even for this trial, my officials were told that if a single noise complaint was made – the whole thing could be blown off course.

A single noise complaint - and vulnerable people are left waiting for the care they desperately need.

I think that tells you everything you need to know about what's going wrong in Britain today.

In the last decade, we've had a succession of strategies.

Piecemeal plan after piecemeal plan.

And yet what has changed?

Growth is anaemic – at best.

Most households are barely better off now than they were in 2010. Across the country, communities are clinging on to industries that are disappearing.

Because no one has confronted the question of what comes next.

You have to ask yourself – why?

Why has government after government found it so difficult to design or deliver a coherent plan for our economy? I think part of the answer is a failure to imagine what a better future for our country could actually look like.

That is a failure of optimism. An inability to believe in Britain's potential.

But – without a plan for realising that potential - it's also a failure of pragmatism.

What other conclusion can you come to? When the data centres we need to power our digital economy get blocked because they ruin the view from the M25?

When life sciences firms are demanding millions of square feet in new lab space.

But over half of applications for lab space in Oxford are snarled up in our archaic planning process.

It doesn't have to be this way.

There is 10 times as much lab space in Boston as there is in Oxford, Cambridge and London combined.

In San Francisco, it takes a couple of minutes to hail a self-driving taxi for you and your kids if you're late for the school run.

In many cities in China, a drone delivering your takeaway is an ordinary, unremarkable part of everyday life.

While others have forged ahead, we risk being left behind.

And – as ever – it's working people who have paid the price.

The stats are clear.

Mario Draghi's recent report into European competitiveness showed that the vast productivity gap between the EU and the US is almost entirely down to the growth of the tech sector.

And Britain isn't much better.

That's not because we have a shortage of brilliant businesses or innovative entrepreneurs.

We've got the third largest tech sector in the world.

Between 2019 and 2023, our digital sector grew over five times faster than the rest of the economy.

But, for too long, government has failed to be a reliable partner for you.

Our industrial strategy – ‘Invest 2035' - will change that.

It will set out a decade-long plan for our economy, squarely focused on the eight sectors with the greatest growth potential and anchored in a positive and pragmatic vision of what Britain's future could look like.

There is no possible version of that future which does not have technology at its heart.

Just as there is no route to long-term growth, no solution to our productivity problem, without innovation.

That's why I will be bringing forward – for the very first time – a dedicated plan for our digital and technologies sector.

That plan will be a partnership with you and with local leaders in regions with the highest growth potential.

And it will be rooted in a firm belief that technology can be a force for good in working people's lives.

Whether that's climate-resistant crops that will provide affordable food in the face of floods and droughts. Quantum scanners that will help us understand devastating diseases like dementia and epilepsy.

Semiconductors like the ones I saw last week in South Wales, which are powering every part of modern life.

New telecoms technologies that will allow people and businesses to access the internet anywhere in the UK – or protect our armed forces abroad.
Drones that can save lives – or simply deliver a takeaway to your door.

Too often, though, British businesses trying to bring technologies like these to market face a mountain of red tape.

That's bad for growth.

And it's bad for British people, who spend longer waiting for the products and services they want. I created the Regulatory Innovation Office (RIO) to change that, focusing on four of our fastest-growing, highest-impact sectors.

Engineering biology. AI in healthcare. Space. And, of course, autonomous technology like drones.

Today, we have announced that David Willetts will take on the role of Chair.

David brings with him an unparalleled wealth of experience.

He may have once sat on the other side of the House.

But few people know the UK science and technology landscape better than him. That's just as well – because he's got his work cut out.

David and Minister Vallance went to Guy's last Friday.

The stifling straightjacket of rules that the team faced before they could start the trial isn't just keeping drones grounded.

It's everywhere you look.

That's why transparent, adaptable, pro-innovation regulation will be the central pillar of the digital and technologies sector plan.

Today, I've set up a forum to get our regulators ready for the quantum revolution.

Because I want them to give British businesses the confidence they need to embrace a technology that will transform every part of our lives. I've also launched new funding for engineering biology sandboxes which will help us accelerate regulatory reform for products like lab-grown organs for transplant or cell-cultivated meat.

This approach is being replicated right across government – even in the places you'd expect it least.

Right now, the humble banana – Britain's favourite fruit – is at risk.

Because almost all the bananas in the world are genetically identical clones, Panama disease could wipe them all out at once.

So Tropic Biosciences – a UK start-up based in Norwich – have come up with an alternative.

Their gene-edited, disease-resistant bananas offer hope for the future.

Better still – they've also developed bananas that ripen, but don't go brown.

Those have already been licensed for consumption in the Philippines.

But not yet in the UK.

Soon, though, that might change.

Bolstered by the reinstatement of the precision breeding working group, Ministers in Defra are working on enabling a route to market for precision bred crops, that will help us to cope in a new era of climate change and food insecurity.

Britain must belong to the bold – not the blockers.

Government must not be afraid to reform the way we regulate to favour innovation.

Nor must we hesitate to embrace the unpredictable nature of research.

One of the challenges of designing a plan for this sector is just how rapidly technology is changing. Imagine if you'd published a ten-year plan for AI the day before ChatGPT was released.

You may as well rip it up and start again.

Though we can see glimpses of our future in places like Guy's Hospital, there's much we cannot predict.

We can be certain, though, that British science will have a pivotal role to play. To future proof our industrial strategy, we shouldn't try and guess where research might end up before scientists have even started.

Instead, we've got to be a stable partner that our researchers can rely on – working with them to tackle the challenges that will define the decade to come.

R&D will be the anchor for this sector plan.

Today, we've invested another £23 million in cutting edge telecoms research that will cement the UK's leadership in advanced connectivity and support projects delivering real, tangible change for people and businesses across Britain.

From using smart sensors to prevent damp and mould in social housing in Glasgow.

To using 5G to help farmers in Sussex monitor their vineyards and maximise their yields.

We've announced the winners of the Quantum Missions Pilot competition, too.

The ten pioneers we've selected will now get to grips with the barriers that are preventing us from commercialising and adopting quantum technologies across the country.

Every one of these investments sends a clear signal.

That Britain isn't just the place where tomorrow's companies are born.

But the place where they can scale and succeed.

A place where the people who are deciding what the next decade looks like will be proud to call home. Because every pound these people on British soil has the potential not just to change working people's lives, but to secure our nation's position as a maker, not a taker, of tomorrow's technology.

That is why we published the AI Opportunities Plan.

We cannot afford to simply sit back and wait for the AI revolution to shape us.

We have got to step up and make sure that Britain is the place where the shape of that revolution gets decided.

That will require working with companies to deliver the compute infrastructure that the researchers leading it will rely on.

In the Action Plan, we committed to increasing the capacity of the AI Research Resource - our current network of cutting-edge super computers - by at least 20 times by 2030.

Today, we are launching market engagement for the private partnerships we will need to meet that commitment. Details of how to take part are now online.

If you want to work together to secure our stake in the future of this technology, I urge you to get in touch.

So we will be bold on regulation. On R&D. On infrastructure.

And I want businesses right across our economy to be bold, too. If we want British people to be the first to benefit from technologies like AI, we've got to empower companies large and small with the confidence to adopt them.

When I talk about partnership, this is what I mean.

Purposeful, long-term collaboration in pursuit of a common goal.

So we've asked Angela MacLean and Dave Smith to work with you to overcome the barriers to tech adoption in every sector of the industrial strategy.

But we're also capitalising on our own position as a customer for our digital and technologies sector, using procurement to drive innovation and deliver a smaller, smarter state that offers better value for money for taxpayers. Everywhere you see, there is an imbalance of power in this country.

Rules which favour the blockers, not the bold.

It is that imbalance which has – for too long – made it impossible to imagine a better future for Britain.

When regulation empowers the people complaining about the sound of drones – not the patients waiting for life saving care.

When businesses lack the support they need to invest in risky R&D.

And researchers can't access the infrastructure they need to make breakthroughs that will make British people better off. When procurement favours the same old suspects.

And firms struggle to adopt technologies that could keep them competitive in the decades to come.

We don't know what 2035 will look like.

But we know that tech will have a pivotal – and positive - role to play.

Engineering biology and AI.

Semiconductors and cybersecurity.

Quantum and telecoms.

Every one of the technologies I have talked about today offers a chance to change working people's lives for the better.

But that will only happen if we have the courage to take that chance.

And an understanding of the radical, far-reaching reform which will be required to do that.

We cannot afford to be cautious.

Together, we've got to shift the balance of power.

Away from stagnation and old ideas. Towards innovation and opportunity.

Away from the naysayers. Towards the can-doers.

Away from the blockers standing in the way of growth. Towards you - the bold people building a new future for Britain.