Green jobs can unlock levelling up — but the government must move fast

Adam Hawksbee and Saqib Bhatti write for Times Red Box about Onward’s new report, Green Jobs Red Wall, on the potential opportunities for Levelling Up provided by driving investment in green industries. They write:

“This opportunity will only materialise if green factories are built here in Britain. Today, too many foreign firms are instead turning to our competitors in the US, China, and the EU. And as Onward research released today shows, this is a time-limited opportunity: we have five years to secure factories in offshore wind and electric vehicle batteries or we risk missing out for ever.

“That’s not to say we don’t have some fantastic successes. In Teesside, the mayor Ben Houchen has invested in ports and land supply to unlock hundreds of millions of pounds of private-sector investment in industries like offshore wind. Another mayor, Andy Street is leading the charge on an electric vehicle “gigafactory” in the West Midlands as part of a world-leading future mobility cluster. Whether it’s the Siemens wind turbine factory in Humberside or Nissan’s electric vehicle factory in Sunderland, there are fantastic examples across Britain of what the future could look like. We just need more of them — and fast.”

Read the full piece here.