Britain should make innovation the centrepiece of government policy to become the world's 'innovation nation' and gain £5,000 per household
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/gordonbrown. "British households would be £5,000 richer if we were more innovative. Let’s unleash our talents | Gordon Brown | The Guardian." October 9, 2026. www.theguardian.com
The Gist
Gordon Brown argues that Britain has world-class universities and research but fails to turn small companies into global giants. If the government makes innovation a central priority, fixing funding, tax and competition barriers, he says the country could be £150bn a year richer, or about £5,000 per household. He frames this as a national mission, like Kennedy's moon programme.
Conclusion
The UK government should place innovation at the heart of its 10-year plan, and adopt policies to turn startups into scale-ups, because doing so would make Britain a global innovation leader and leave every household about £5,000 better off.
Premises
- The coming decade will bring major scientific breakthroughs in AI, quantum computing and biology, and Britain is well placed in these fields.
- The UK has outsized research assets: four of the world's top 10 universities, 6% of global research papers from under 1% of the world's population, and landmark inventions such as AlphaFold and viral-vector vaccines.
- Raising UK innovation intensity to Swedish or Japanese levels would, over time, raise national income by about £150bn a year and leave each household about £5,000 better off.
- Britain's key weakness is commercialisation: it is slow to turn startups into scale-ups and global winners (the US has double the number of $1bn companies per head and nearly triple the number of $10bn+ companies), and three-quarters of venture capital comes from overseas.
- These bottlenecks can be fixed through government action: better access to UK capital, investor incentives, public-private partnerships backed by the British Business Bank and national wealth fund, pro-entrant competition policy, R&D tax credits, long-term support for 127 regional clusters, devolution to mayors, and finding 'lost Einsteins' in lower-income areas.
- The public supports the vision, with 75% agreeing innovation is essential for economic growth, so a shared national mission is achievable.
Assumptions
- Higher innovation intensity causes higher productivity and national income, rather than merely correlating with it.
- UK innovation intensity can realistically be raised to Swedish or Japanese levels through government policy.
- The author's £5,000-per-household calculation is a reasonable estimate, and gains would be broadly shared across households.
- Weakness in scaling companies is mainly caused by policy and financing bottlenecks rather than structural factors such as market size or regulation.
- Strength in academic research and spin-outs can be converted into commercial and economic success.
- Public support for innovation in polls translates into political will and willingness to accept the trade-offs.