MPs warn of brain drain without skills investment

Investment in skills and businesses is vital if the UK is not to suffer a debilitating brain drain, a new report by the UK parliament’s Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee has stated.

The MPs’ report cited a skills shortage, particularly in areas of increasing importance such as digital and green skills, as a major restraint to the UK’s chronic lack of productivity growth.

The committee called on the government to revive the Green Skills Taskforce that had previously operated to join up policy-making on skills between the then Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Department for Education.

MPs concluded that research and development funding had “fallen behind” competitors’ and that full offsetting of capital expenditure in tax, while welcome, was available for too short a period for it to impact long-term investment decisions.

The government should also work constructively with businesses on developing regulation, the report said, adding that better impact assessments would help improve business confidence following the UK’s departure from the EU.

Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee chair Darren Jones warned that huge proposed economic interventions in the US and the EU risked further pushing the UK down the league table.

“Time is of the essence,” he said. ‘Three years after the UK left the European Union, we face the very real threat of UK investments being tempted into European or American markets. This cash and brain drain becomes more likely every day we go without a government plan to support UK industry towards economic growth.”

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Business, academic and trade union leaders will speak at the Committee’s “Moving the dial on economic growth” conference that will be attended by industry figures, thinktanks, trade bodies, unions and regulators.

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