Richard Partington’s article in the Observer of 13 August 2023, Can Britain recreate a microchip industry worth its salt? is timely.

There can be few more important topics in the realm of British manufacturing than the microchip. British companies from GEC and Plessey through to Thorn and Ferranti have wrestled with the challenge of microchip manufacture. Back in the seventies GEC turned down a business plan for mass production of semiconductors in the UK. The government-back Inmos failed, but the factory is functioning under the name Nexperia Newport. A number of other companies soldier on, but what is lacking are financial institutions willing to back the long term, and government that both understands and is prepared to back manufacturing. It is an irony that the Prime Minister who best understood manufacturing was the scientist Margaret Thatcher whose doctrinaire policies did so much to damage it. The attitude of government to welcome foreign manufacturers is obsequious, and its failure to prevent the constant drain of British business into foreign ownership is an utter dereliction of public duty. Can we get it right this time? I dearly hope so. The final irony is of course, that we could be doing it by friendsourcing with our EU partners.