Industrial Strategy: Chemicals Sector

4. What steps he is taking to include the chemicals sector within the industrial strategy.

The industrial strategy has identified eight key growth-driving sectors that will be the arrowhead of our economic success, but of course they cannot succeed without the critical supply chains and foundational industries that underpin them. We are looking at all those foundational industries, including the chemicals industry, to see what the barriers to growth are, what challenges they face, and how can we overcome them through our strategy.

I very much welcome the Minister’s recognition of the chemicals sector’s contribution as a foundational sector and an anchor employer in constituencies such as mine; we have the Dow site there. What can we do to support the deeply integrated supply chains across the UK and Europe that the chemicals sector, and Dow in particular, relies on?

I do not want to underestimate the challenges that the chemical sector faces. Between 2021 and 2024, UK chemicals manufacturing fell in real terms by about a third. We are working to improve the UK’s trade and investment relationship with the EU. We want to build exports and investment opportunities and reduce barriers to trade. Conversations are at an early stage, so I will not go into specifics, but we are certainly working to help the chemicals industry.

What assessment has the Minister made of the benefits that inclusion of the chemicals sector among the eight sectors could bring for our national security and our pharmaceutical sector? How can all regions of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland benefit from this sector?

When we look at the eight sectors that we are trying to turbocharge through the industrial strategy, we see that the chemicals sector underpins so many other sectors. We need to make sure that we protect it. As I have just said, chemicals manufacturing has fallen by nearly a third over the past three years; we need to turn that around. We are looking at what we can do to break down barriers and make improvements—for example, on the cost of energy. That is part of the mix when it comes to making sure that we are secure in the future.