Innovation is how we restore pride to communities the length and breadth of the UK: pride in the places we live in and pride in the work we do. People in Sunderland, in Stoke, in Kirkcaldy and in the Valleys are not asking for a return to the past. They are asking to know their town can still make things the world wants to buy, and that there will be good jobs for their children. Innovation is the only sustainable way to deliver the Prime Minister’s promise of good growth in every postcode.
The good news is that innovation is already more widely based than we might think. Glasgow leads Europe’s satellite industry. Leeds has more fast-growing venture-backed firms than Oxford, and Manchester more than Cambridge, with both ahead of Milan, Madrid and Munich. That is why Andy Burnham is right to put sharing power across our nations and regions at the heart of his plans. Whitehall cannot know where every investor needs laboratory space or which courses every college should run.
But not everything can be done locally. The UK government can deepen our capital markets so that firms founded in Dundee or Manchester no longer have to sell
early or list abroad to grow. Only national government can close gaps in our supply chains and negotiate trade in a protectionist world. And only by partnering with like-minded allies, capitalising on the UK’s assets, can we ensure UK firms have access to the global markets they need to truly scale.
This summit asks how local initiative and national action can work together to drive the UK’s global position; how the Prime Minister, Chancellor and the National Economic Council can set a direction the nation can follow. Ours must be a partnership of inventors, investors, industrialists and government, enabling innovation to drive local, regional and national growth.
The places that built Britain can rebuild Britain. And if we get this right, then ours will be an innovation nation once again, with all people and all places presenting the best of the UK to the world.
The Rt Hon Gordon Brown
