UK goes full throttle to back British business with advanced manufacturing plan

The UK government has unveiled an advanced manufacturing plan (AMP), including a first battery strategy, aimed at making the country a world-leader in zero emissions technology, securing investment, and creating hundreds of thousands of jobs.

It comes as the UK plays hosts to hundreds of top executives at the global investment summit at Hampton Court and after last week's Autumn Statement where £4.5 billion of funding was committed to the automotive, aerospace, clean energy and life sciences industries.

READ MORE: £11.3 million battery production project creates 50 jobs

In the latest plan, more than £2 billion has been earmarked for the automotive industry, including batteries, while £975 million will go to the aerospace sector.

UK manufacturing has received a shot in the arm recently with car giant Nissan announcing up to £2bn investment into Sunderland, the £4 billion Tata gigafactory, and the £600 million Electric Mini investment from BMW. Boeing is also unlocking £80 million of aerospace manufacturing investment in Sheffield.

"We are going full throttle to back British businesses and make the UK a world leader in manufacturing - which already makes up over 43 percent of all our exports and employs 2.6 million people across the country," said UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

"Today’s plan will not only give the industry the long-term certainty they need to grow and invest further in the UK, but it will also lay the foundations to create more jobs and opportunities for people across the country."

Business secretary Kemi Badenoch added: "The UK recently overtook France to become the world’s eighth largest manufacturing economy.

"The advanced manufacturing plan will build on that success by targeting funding at where we have a competitive advantage."

Whitehall says the battery sector, in which it is looking to invest £50 million, could create 100,000 jobs by 2040, with thousands of further jobs available in the wider sector. the aim is to establish a globally competitive battery supply chain by 2030.

Industry minister Nusrat Ghani said he wanted to be "ahead of the curve" in working with industry to produce the battery strategy.

"This will help businesses become more innovative and productive, future-proofing our economy and supporting our ambition towards a cleaner, greener future, and forms a crucial part of our Advanced Manufacturing Plan to back British industry for the long term," she said.

In addition, a new hydrogen taskforce will maximise investment opportunities for the UK manufacturing of hydrogen propulsion systems.

The UK's hydrogen strategy wants to reach up to 10GW of hydrogen production capacity by 2030, with at least half coming from electrolytic or 'green' hydrogen.

The AMP also builds on existing support, which includes the British Industry Supercharger, which ensures that energy costs for key industries like steel, metals, chemicals, and paper producers are in line with other major economies around the world and the Industrial Energy Transformation Fund, which supports the deployment of technologies to help businesses with high energy use transition to a low carbon future.

At last week's Autumn Statement, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt also announced he would make the Full Expensing scheme permanent so businesses can invest for less.

The government said this delivers an effective permanent tax cut of £11 billion a year for businesses who invest in IT equipment, plant and machinery.

With the tax cut now permanent, the UK continues to have both the lowest headline corporation tax rate in the G7 and the most generous capital allowances in the OECD group of major advanced economies, it added.

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