Jayne Dowle: UK needs proper jobs if it is to be a hive of industry

The headline figures are clear. The Prime Minister has already outlined how the Government plans to increase public and private research and development investment by up to £80bn over the next decade. And she’s announced £1.7bn to improve transport links in city regions.

My pondering about our Lizzie has a point in all this. At her parents’ evening the other week we met with her maths teacher, an old-fashioned sort unimpressed by any kind of hype. Reforms to the curriculum? He’s seen it all, several times over in his long teaching career. Industrial Strategy? He would want to see proof that it added up, with all workings out shown in full.

On this occasion however, he was absolutely beside himself with excitement. Lizzie is apparently excelling at maths. Sir is already predicting a possible top grade at GCSE.

When I picked myself up off the floor at this startling news – it took me three attempts to scrape my maths O-level, so her ability has obviously not been inherited from her mother – I got to thinking about the big picture. If Lizzie is as able in this subject as her teacher seems to think she is, what opportunities might come her way as she moves up through education and into employment?

At the moment, she’s more concerned about being called a geek because she’s a lonely girl in the top set and hasn’t got many friends to talk to. I’ve told her that talking in maths class was probably a huge factor in my inability to listen and learn, but when you’re 12 these things matter.

When she’s 18, however, I hope she will be considering her options for higher education and find herself in a climate which still encourages girls in particular to study STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects at degree level and above.

Having taught a much softer subject, journalism and media, for almost a decade in a regional university, I know how much is already invested in this sector. It’s all research, research, research. Lizzie doesn’t understand it yet, but she will come to realise that if you’re a girl in the UK and your strengths lie in the STEM direction, you will be treated like an academic princess.

However, my concern is what happens next? Where do all these talented graduates find work and opportunities? If this Industrial Strategy is actually going to make a difference it has to be securely embedded at a regional level, linking up schools, universities, employers and investors.

There is no point throwing money at already successful industrial sectors – such as digital and pharmaceutical companies – in prosperous parts of the country. This will simply make current jarring inequalities worse. Rather, the Government needs to take a sustained approach to seeking out new opportunities in every region outside London and the South-East.

This must be backed up with a commitment to improve infrastructure, especially affordable public transport. It should also involve steering the roll-out of new homes and communities towards former heavy industry areas and blighted coastal resorts.

And it should take into account not just the brightest and the best, but the millions of people in their teens and 20s who are wondering whether there will ever be a “proper” job for them to do. Imposing a fancy strategy on a gig economy already riven with instability and financial insecurity is short-termism in the extreme.

Above all, today’s official announcement must not be seen as a desperate PR exercise devised by an ailing government. The challenge ahead is far more serious than mere political fortunes.

Our world is changing faster than ever, with new technologies ripping through old industries at breathtaking speed. I’ll give you an example. Only a decade ago, logistics was promoted as the great white hope for the unemployed in regions such as Yorkshire. The movement of goods from one place to another, requiring huge warehouses and high levels of manpower, looked like a saviour.

Fast forward and much of this industry is now automated. In 2017, those huge warehouses may have only a handful of staff pressing buttons. As a country, we simply can’t afford to pin all our hopes on one or two solutions. We have to keep evolving and setting the pace, not reacting sluggishly to market forces and globalisation when the world has already moved on to the next thing.

In the UK, with a post-Brexit economy on the horizon, creating a serious survival plan is more pertinent than ever. If we are to survive and thrive, we need to provide real opportunities for our young people to find education and training and pioneer the economies of the future.

On paper, this new Industrial Strategy is a crucial part of that very necessary plan. However, it’s got to actually work.