LORD MANDELSON will today explain how a £500m fund will establish the region’s businesses of tomorrow and bring a fast return to economic growth.
The Business Secretary will promise long-term investment in new technologies such as biosciences, plastic electronics and low-carbon wind and wave power.
The speech follows last month’s announcement of a £500m National Investment Corporation to fund innovative small firms that struggle to obtain funding from traditional banks.
Financial institutions, insurance companies, pension funds and private equity groups have been asked to contribute to the fund.
Meanwhile, Gordon Brown is expected to tomorrow launch a £100bn programme to build thousands of offshore wind turbines, mostly in the North Sea.
Lord Mandelson – who was forced yesterday to deny whispers of renewed Cabinet attempts to unseat the Prime Minister – believes his new “industrial activism” will be a crucial issue at the General Election.
He has admitted that Labour failed to throw its efforts into spreading wealth from the City of London, by boosting industry and manufacturing, until the shock of the banking crash.
A spokeswoman said the speech would show the Government “going for growth”, and said: “Lord Mandelson will define the core challenges in building sustainable growth in the British economy in the years ahead.
“He will set out new plans to promote enterprise, develop a national British ‘innovation system’, create new forms of growth finance for innovative companies and tackle the huge challenge of renewing Britain’s infrastructure.”
It has been suggested that innovative businesses will be given a tax break on the profits they make from patented new inventions.
Meanwhile, the wind turbine projects, to be announced tomorrow, are designed to be the biggest in the UK.
The biggest is expected to be at Dogger Bank, about 60 miles off the North-East coast, where wind farms with enough power for ten million homes are planned, at an estimated cost of £30bn.
Lord Mandelson yesterday had to deny rumours of a Cabinet rift over Labour’s election tactics after he warned that a “core votes” strategy – concentrated on Labour heartlands – would lead to defeat.
Many saw the comments as aimed at Children’s Secretary Ed Balls, the biggest advocate of a “Labour investment versus Tory cuts” strategy, downplaying the need for spending cuts.
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