Three former business secretaries from different parties have accused Rishi Sunak of failing to create an effective or even visible industrial strategy.
Greg Clark, a former Conservative business secretary and former levelling up secretary, said the prime minister was so unenthusiastic about the idea that it was “like a guilty secret”, and that he had never heard Sunak even refer to “industrial strategy”.
When Sunak was chancellor, he binned Clark’s industrial strategy in March 2021 in a move that even surprised some of those working in Boris Johnson’s government at the time.
Clark’s criticism was echoed by Labour’s Lord Mandelson, as well as Liberal Democrat Sir Vince Cable, who was business secretary in the coalition government.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt insisted at a British Chambers of Commerce conference on Wednesday: “We do have an industrial strategy. We’ve been very clear about that. We’ve identified five growth sectors that we think we will need to give special attention to.”
