Osborne backs 'industrial strategy' in spending review

This was one of a raft of measures announced in yesterday’s combined Autumn Statement and Spending Review that include a commitment to support the development and sale of ultra-low emission vehicles, the exemption of energy intensive industries from environmental tariffs, and making £61bn available for transport projects, including an £11bn investment in London’s transport infrastructure.

“In the modern world one of the best ways you can back business is by backing science,” said Osborne. “That’s why in the last Parliament, I protected the resource budget for science in cash terms. In this Parliament I’m protecting it in real terms so it rises to £4.7bn. That’s £500m more by the end of the decade. Alongside £6.9bn in the capital budget too.”

Osborne used his speech in Parliament to announce a doubling of expenditure on energy research, including a commitment to small modular nuclear reactors.  Support for renewables will more than double too, but ring-fenced funding for carbon capture and storage has been removed.