Jeremy Hunt confirms the previously announced £4.5 billion in funding for British manufacturing to boost investment in eight sectors across the U.K., available for a five-year period from 2025. The Treasury announced £960 million for clean energy, over £2 billion for the automotive industry, £975 million for aerospace, and £520 million for life sciences manufacturing.
The entire manufacturing sector makes up over 43% of all U.K. exports and employs around 2.6 million people. Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt said the government was targeting funding to “support the sectors where the U.K. is or could be world-leading.”
“Our £4.5 billion of funding will leverage many times that from the private sector, and in turn will grow our economy, creating more skilled, higher-paid jobs in new industries that will be built to last,” Hunt said in a statement.
Hunt also promises an additional £500 million investment in artificial intelligence to ensure that universities, scientists, and startups can access the compute power they need. The U.K. economy forecast is expected to grow by 0.6% this year and 0.7% next year, based on the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecasts.
Hunt says the U.K. will meet its NATO commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defense. Moreover, the government is taking steps to ensure that public sector borrowing will fall from 4.5% this year to 1.1% in 2028/9. The full new state pension will also rise by 8.5% to £221.20 per week, benefiting pensioners by up to £900 per year. Universal Credit and other benefits will increase by 6.7%. Inflation is projected to fall to 2.8% in the UK.
