Ippr Thinktank and England

ippr: The figures are likely to reinforce calls for the government to renew focus on its industrial strategy, which is struggling for impetus as Whitehall pours resources into Brexit preparations, according to The Guardian. Carys Roberts, chief economist at the IPPR thinktank and head of the Centre for Economic Justice, said The fact that growth from all regions of England has consistently lagged behind that from London is a clear indicator that something is wrong in the economy. The Office for National Statistics underlined the city's disproportionate economic heft in its first set of regional GDP figures for England and Wales, which showed the north-east with the slowest growth over the same period at 5.9%. The West Midlands economy, home to the UK's biggest carmaker Jaguar Land Rover, came second to London after it expanded 16.5% over six years from 2012 to the end of 2018. Such regional inequalities hold back productivity, wages and people's standard of living and quality of life. We should be building high-tech industrial clusters around our many world-leading research-based universities. We need a new industrial strategy act setting out clear goals that focus on putting this right. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.