The UK’s manufacturing sector plays a vital role in the UK economy through driving innovation, exports, job creation and productivity growth. The Government is taking steps to help drive increased competitiveness in UK manufacturing to anchor investment and production. This includes,

• increasing the Annual Investment Allowance to £1m until the end of this year to help manufacturers make the investments in capital equipment that can support their increased competitiveness;
• and investing £26m over three years to support aerospace and automotive supply chains through the National Manufacturing Competitiveness Levels programme.

We are also helping UK manufacturers build on their strengths in innovation. Through the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, we have invested £2.5 billion to drive cutting-edge research and innovation, from world-leading battery design to new light-weight composite materials. We are investing up to £167m into Made Smarter, the UK’s national industrial digitalisation programme, to boost manufacturing productivity through the development and adoption of cutting-edge digital technology.

Furthermore, the 2020 Budget announced the UK’s largest and fastest expansion of support for R&D across the economy, with spending set to reach £22bn by 2024/2025 and businesses receiving an increase in R&D tax credit from 12% to 13%. To help ensure this investment in research and innovation also helps anchor production in the UK, we have invested over £350m in the High Value Manufacturing Catapult network to support the commercialisation of new manufacturing technologies, and we will be investing £600m more by the end of 2023.

However, in these difficult and unprecedented times of the coronavirus outbreak, the Government is doing everything it can to tackle the pandemic; to mitigate its impacts and protect jobs so that manufacturers can continue to provide essential goods and services.

An unprecedented package of support has been announced for business and workers to protect against the economic emergency caused by the coronavirus.

The Government has made available an initial £330 billion of loans and guarantees – equivalent to 15% of UK GDP to support firms and help them manage cashflows through this period. The Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS), delivered by the British Business Bank, went live on 23 March 2020 and will support smaller businesses, including unincorporated businesses such as partnerships and sole traders. Full guidance, including eligibility criteria has been published here on the British Business Bank's website:

www.british-business-bank.co.uk/cbils.