Lord Mandelson visits Oxford

The Rt Hon Lord Mandelson, First Secretary and Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, gave a lecture today at the Saïd Business School entitled ‘The Enterprise-led Recovery’, in which he argued for the role of government in creating the right environment for entrepreneurship, through – among other things – supporting education and research.

‘Our recovery will be enterprise-led,’ he said. ‘The jobs and growth will be created by private enterprise and private investment. But if and how government supports that enterprise will be critical.’

He spoke against the ideology whose argument ran ‘Like this: The problem, essentially, is government. Too much of it. The government is a check on enterprise, a check on growth. It is standing in the way. So let’s get rid of it, or at least cut it down to size …In my view, to argue that government is chiefly a problem for enterprise in this country is not only wrong, but it is to misunderstand fundamentally what enterprise needs in order to work. In a globalised economy based on high levels of knowledge, skill and innovation, enterprise needs an active government in many respects. Not a big state that gets in the way of business. Nor the small state that offers nothing but the kind of retrenchment that, at its worst, would plunge Britain into a double dip recession. But a smart state working in partnership with business that fosters growth as the answer to unemployment and debt. Not big, but activist.’

He imagined ‘the high tech entrepreneur who commercialises an innovative low carbon technology’, who, he said, would have to draw on her own education, ‘the UK’s science base’, ‘access to finance to support trials of pre-commerical technology’, ‘highly educated staff’ and ‘a digital infrastructure for broadband.’

Lord Mandelson mentioned higher education, research, and innovation and spin-outs at universities such as Oxford as playing a vital role in securing future economic prosperity. Afterwards, he answered questions on a range of issues including the Oxford tutorial system, research councils, and postgraduate student funding.