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24 April 2025: Industrial Strategy Advisory Council meeting minutes

Published 28 May 2025

Industrial Strategy Advisory Council (ISAC) – meeting 4

Thursday 24 April 2025, 10:30am, the University of Manchester National Graphene Institute, in-person.

The fourth meeting of the ISAC took place at The University of Manchester National Graphene Institute on Thursday 24 April 2025. It was chaired by Clare Barclay and attended by Council Members and the Secretariat of the ISAC. Minister Jones, Joint Minister for Industry at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and the Department for Business and Trade (DBT), joined part of the meeting.

Members

• Clare Barclay – Chair
• Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell – Deputy Chair
• Dr Aislinn Rice
• Dame Anita Frew
• Professor Dame Diane Coyle
• The Rt Hon Greg Clark
• Greg Jackson
• Professor Henry Overman
• Henrik L. Pedersen
• Sir John Kingman
• Kate Bell
• Baroness Shriti Vadera
• Tunde Olanrewaju
• Chris Grigg (ex-officio)
• Phil Smith (ex-officio)

Officials

• ISAC Secretariat
• Sam Lister – Director General, Industrial Strategy, DBT
• Fred Perry – Director, Industrial Strategy, DBT
• Leonie Lambert – Director, Industrial Strategy Council, DBT
• Sean Jones – Director, Companies and Economic Security, HM Treasury
• Sravya Rao – Deputy Director, Economy and Strategic Analysis, DBT

Apologies

• Roy Rickhuss

Agenda item 1: welcome from the Industrial Strategy Advisory Council Chair

1. Clare Barclay (CB) updated members on recent engagements, including having joined the new AI Energy Council. Additionally, CB and Nancy Rothwell (NR) have met with Minister Sarah Jones, and notified that fortnightly meetings would take place going forwards.

Agenda item 2: discussion on latest policy development in relation to white paper and sector plans

1. Sam Lister (SL) and Fred Perry (FP) provided an update on latest progress on policy development towards the industrial strategy and sector plans for the growth-driving sectors.
2. Members emphasised the importance of sector plans in clearly defining priority intervention areas within the business landscape. The plans should outline specific actions, measurable impacts, and timelines to enhance credibility with investors. Members discussed the need for a clear vision and a cohesive approach being crucial for aligning stakeholders and ensuring effective interventions.
3. Members discussed the need for the sector plans to:
      1. define clear priority intervention areas, with specific actions, measurable impacts, and timelines
      2. be credible strategies rather than conceptual frameworks
      3. strengthen investor confidence by enhancing focus and clarity
      4. show how they would deliver tangible change for people and places

Agenda item 3: discussion on industrial strategy policy

The chair thanked members for their work so far within each of their allocated policy workstreams and invited updates.  

The key discussions were as follows:

1. Energy costs and strategy: members noted the need for a balanced energy strategy that addresses energy resilience, affordability, and net zero goals. They emphasised the importance of reducing the anti-competitive impact of high energy costs and the need to do this in a way that tackled the underlying causes of high energy prices.
2. Skills and talent: members focused on addressing skills gaps, especially in the priority growth sectors, and the need for reskilling the existing workforce. They highlighted the importance of aligning skills development with the industrial strategy’s growth ambitions, and of long-term workforce planning within the growth sectors. Additionally, they discussed the need for a balanced approach that prioritised training within the UK but also allowed the UK to attract talent from abroad where this aligned with growth ambitions.
3. Place: members discussed the importance of prioritising regions for investment and development and avoiding spreading government interventions too thinly. They emphasised the need for a clear strategy that identifies key regions to focus on initially, while also providing a pathway for other regions to follow. This includes considering the role of universities and regional authorities in driving growth.
4. Data: members agreed that there was significant potential for growth and economic benefits in a new approach to data and content. Discussion focused on the need for government to take measures to support and facilitate data usage to drive content creation, innovation and commercialisation, and for consideration to be given to how public data is valued and made available to other users.

Agenda item 4: monitoring and evaluation (M&E)

1. The chair welcomed officials from DBT to discuss the Council’s role in monitoring and evaluation of the industrial strategy post-publication. Discussion centred on the need for clear and measurable metrics and data; and for the Council to have a clear role in ensuring the industrial strategy is implemented that does not duplicate the evaluation that will be done by government departments and the National Audit Office (NAO).

The chair closed the meeting and thanked members for their contributions noting the next steps on the policy process. The next formal Council meeting is scheduled for 20 May 2025.