UK Modern Industrial Strategy 2025 (Command Paper CP 1451)

Mechanism

CP 1451 is a 160-page Command Paper laid before Parliament on 23 June 2025 under Written Ministerial Statement HCWS725 by Secretary of State for Business and Trade Jonathan Reynolds. It is a horizontal strategy document — not a single statute or appropriation — that re-establishes a UK industrial-policy framework after the 2017 Industrial Strategy was withdrawn under the Truss/Sunak governments in 2021.

Three core stated objectives: (i) raise business investment, (ii) raise productivity, (iii) build economic resilience. Ten-year horizon, with quarterly progress reporting (first update July–September 2025 published October 2025).

IS-8 priority sectors

Each has its own Sector Plan published alongside CP 1451:

1. Advanced Manufacturing 2. Clean Energy 3. Creative Industries 4. Defence 5. Digital and Technology 6. Financial Services 7. Life Sciences 8. Professional and Business Services

A separate strand recognises "foundational" industries (electricity, ports, composites, materials, construction, steel, critical minerals, chemicals) as cross-cutting suppliers to the IS-8.

Instruments

• R&D envelope: GBP 86bn earmarked across the IS-8 sectors over the

strategy horizon.

• British Business Bank: a further GBP 6.6bn capital uplift to support

UK venture capital funds and direct startup investment by 2030; additional GBP 4bn earmarked for the IS-8.

• National Wealth Fund: GBP 27.8bn capitalisation deployed alongside

the strategy (created via the National Wealth Fund Bill — separate statutory vehicle, but loaded into the strategy as a delivery channel).

• Strategic Sites Accelerator: GBP 600m for land remediation/preparation

and small local infrastructure upgrades on industrial sites.

• Industrial Strategy Advisory Council: relaunched as a permanent

statutory advisory body to retain focus on industrial-strategy outcomes in policy-making and delivery.

• Skills: reforms via "Skills England" + apprenticeship overhaul.
• Planning / regulation: aligned with the Planning & Infrastructure Bill.
• Trade: sector-specific export packages and trade-policy alignment.

Where it sits in the UK stack

• Hosted on the 2022-04-28 UK Subsidy Control Act — the post-Brexit

subsidy regime that lets UK public authorities deploy these envelopes without EU state-aid notification.

• Subsumes / re-frames sector strategies already filed —

2023-05-19 UK National Semiconductor Strategy (digital & tech leg of IS-8) and the queued UK Critical Minerals Strategy Vision 2035 (foundational leg).

• Companion to 2025-11-22 UK Critical Minerals Strategy under the

foundational-industries strand.

Downstream implications

• Restores a stable cross-government industrial-policy framework that

the OBR, Bank of England and gilt market can score against — relevant for UK business-investment forecasts and EWU/FLGB allocations.

• Shifts the UK closer to the US-CHIPS / EU-Chips-Act / IRA-style

subsidy-stack model, but at a smaller absolute scale (GBP 86bn R&D + ~GBP 38bn institutional capital vs USD 280bn US CHIPS+IRA combined). The UK is choosing scope (8 sectors) over depth (no CHIPS-style fab subsidy line).

• The Industrial Strategy Advisory Council being permanent and statutory

is the institutional commitment device — designed to survive a future change of government, which the 2017 strategy did not.

• Sector Plans become the operative documents for each IS-8 sector;

expect those to be the source of any future IPTM filings (e.g. specific procurement carve-outs, sector-tariff measures, foreign-investment screening triggers).

Open questions

• How tightly are the GBP 27.8bn National Wealth Fund envelope and the

British Business Bank GBP 6.6bn uplift ring-fenced to IS-8 sectors vs general growth lending? The Sector Plans may answer this.

• Will the Industrial Strategy Advisory Council have any formal veto /

consultation rights over policy proposals that conflict with the IS-8 priorities, or is it advisory only?

• Where does the strategy sit on outbound-investment screening (the

IRA / EU FSR / Japan ESPA companion piece)? CP 1451 references trade policy alignment but no UK outbound-investment regime is announced here.