The North's clean energy and advanced manufacturing is key to future of UK economy, report finds
The North holds the key to the UK’s economic future through renewable energy and advanced manufacturing, a new study has found.
The report, from the think tank IPPR North, comes ahead of Rachel Reeves’ spring statement, with the Chancellor desperate to find growth for the economy.
It says that amid deepening global instability with Donald Trump’s tariffs, expertise in green manufacturing gives the North of England a competitive edge to rebuild the UK’s economy in a sustainable way.
According to researchers, the North already produces half of England’s renewable energy and provides 36 per cent of all UK jobs in green goods and services.
In the Humber, Siemens Gamesa is currently building 300 sustainable wind turbine blades for the Sophia wind farm in the North Sea.
And IPPR says that the North and the Midlands are home to more manufacturing than London and the South East.
In South Yorkshire, mayor Oliver Coppard has set up the world’s first advanced manufacturing innovation district, with Holtec, a US energy equipment firm, planning to build a £1.5bn nuclear small modular reactor factory in the region.
Report author and research fellow at IPPR North, Dr Ryan Swift, said: “Rachel Reeves was right … when she said we cannot rely on just a few pockets of the country to drive growth.
“To do so would be to write off large parts of the country.
“The UK faces a choice: act now to enable our regions to grow the clean industries of the future, or miss a once in a generation opportunity while other countries race ahead.
“The road to prosperity is paved through the North which is already the motor behind the country’s green manufacturing.
“With an industrial strategy that works with and for regions, we can build a growing economy that not only tackles the climate crisis but also closes the place-based inequalities deepened by decades of deindustrialisation.”
Speaking to The Yorkshire Post from the Siemens Gamesa plant in Hull, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said: “I think what is happening here in the Humber is a fantastic example of what net zero can do for a region and indeed the country.
“I love coming here because I think Siemens is just brilliant and expanding massive opportunities.”
The German firm is taking on 30 apprentices from the Humber region this year.
Mr Miliband added: “We have a Chancellor and a Prime Minister who really get that this whole net zero agenda is an economic agenda, not simply an environmental agenda.”
This comes as a new report found the North Sea could produce about half of the oil and gas the UK will need in the run up to 2050, when successive governments have committed to reaching net zero, but only if new projects can be developed.
As it stands Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) said the UK is on track to produce just four billion of the 13 to 15 billion barrels of oil and gas the country will need over the next 25 years.
However, OEUK argued that by “unlocking additional resources from waters around the coast” this could be increased to about seven billion barrels – a move which the industry body said could be worth £150bn to the UK economy.