How We Build Britain

Has Brexit damaged UK industry? Ten years on from the referendum, the debate is still dominated by politics. But what does the evidence actually show? In this episode, Rob Gilbert examines the Brexit balance sheet for British industry. He looks at the impact on trade, productivity and investment, and explores what the new trading relationship has meant for automotive, agriculture and food, chemica...

Just how is the offshore wind industry in the UK really doing?  I put that question to Tim Pick on the fringe of Global Offshore Wind 2026 in Manchester. Tim is Britain's first offshore wind champion, a former clean power commissioner, vice president of the Energy Institute and chair of the Offshore Wind Growth Partnership. We cover where the industry really stands, AR7 and the job of turning...

A million young people in Britain are now not in education, employment or training, the highest level in over a decade. Alan Milburn’s interim review into young people and work has laid out the scale of it. This episode argues that underneath the headline numbers is a story about what happened to British industry, and that rebuilding it is part of the answer. The review’s findings are stark: more...

 I reflect on Great British Energy's first year and ask an honest question: what has actually changed for the places that have been on the wrong side of industrial decline for a generation? The answer is complicated, but there is a genuine reason for optimism. The coasts, the estuaries, the old industrial heartlands are, by an accident of physics and geography, exactly where the energy transi...

How has Denmark prospered from one big industrial bet? How did South Korea build an industrial economy that excels in everything from shipbuilding to cutting-edge batteries? Why did Japan keep its heavy industries when everyone else let theirs go? Each made deliberate choices. Each sustained them across decades and changes of government. Each underpinned them with competitive energy. And each now...

Britain has deindustrialised more than any other developed nation. The energy transition, the largest industrial demand signal this country will generate for decades, offers a chance to reverse that trend. The question is whether we take it. In this first episode, I explore why Britain has become world-class at deploying energy infrastructure but consistently fails to capture the industrial value...