Autumn Statement 2012
What the Autumn Statement means for Business, Innovation and Skills.
Houses of Parliament - London. © iStockphoto.com/David Pedre
The Autumn Statement is one of two major statements the Treasury has to give to Parliament every year.
The Statement provides an update on the government’s plans for the economy based on the latest forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility. These forecasts are published alongside the Autumn Statement on 5 December.
For this update of the government’s spending plans, the Department for Business has secured £2.4 billion of additional funding to support growth, with a focus on skills and science projects.
This money reinforces the government’s commitment to plan for medium and long term recovery.
It will aid the development of an industrial strategy to shape and rebalance our economy, in partnership with business. This will drive growth, create the jobs of the future and help us get ahead in the global race.
Main announcements for BIS
- An additional £600 million for science, research and innovation, which takes the total investment since the 2010 spending review to an additional £1.5 billion.
- An extra £270 million to be spent on laboratories, classrooms and other facilities in our Further Education colleges.
- £1 billion confirmed for the business bank, which will address the long-term structural gap in lending to small businesses.
- An extra £120 million invested in supply chains, to encourage companies to invest here in the UK.
- The Regional Growth Fund will also receive an additional £310 million, bringing the total available from April 2013 to £2.6 billion.
- The first stage of the government’s response to Lord Heseltine’s independent review on economic growth, ‘No Stone Unturned’.
- Extra money for the Employer Ownership Pilot, taking it to £340 million overall and giving businesses funding so they can design and develop their own training programmes.
- Increased funding of £140 million for UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) to help small and medium sized business export abroad.
- £1.5 billion to help our smallest companies to access growing markets overseas. For the first time UK Export Finance, the Government’s export credit agency, will be able to issue loans to overseas customers and buyers wanting to purchase goods from UK businesses.
- A package of measures to cut back red tape that business has told government stops them from growing.
Science and Innovation
Since the start of the Spending Review in 2010 the yearly £4.6 billion funding for science and research programmes has been protected in cash terms and ring-fenced during the spending review period.
The extra £600 million announced today will be invested in facilities for technological research and development and Research Council infrastructure.
This amounts to an additional £1.5 billion of capital funding for science, research and innovation since the beginning of the Review.
This investment will support the development of innovative technologies and strengthen the UK‘s competitive advantage in areas such as:
- Big data and energy efficient computing.
- Advanced materials.
- Energy storage.
Further details about how the £600 million will be spent will be published in due course.
The Science budget will continue to be protected and ring-fenced for the rest of the Spending Review.