I can today announce to the House that the government is taking the next step in delivering a flagship intervention of the Industrial Strategy, by launching a consultation to seek stakeholders’ views on the proposed approach and eligibility for the new British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme (BICS).

In recent years, British industries have faced some of the highest industrial electricity prices in Europe. In the Industrial Strategy, the government committed to bringing British industrial electricity costs more in line with other economies in Europe to level the playing field for British businesses for particular growth sectors.

The new scheme will reduce electricity costs for manufacturing frontier industries within the Industrial Strategy’s growth sectors (the ‘IS-8’), and foundational manufacturing industries which provide key inputs to the frontier industries, who meet a certain threshold of electricity intensity. The scheme aims to reduce electricity costs for over 7,000 eligible businesses by up to £40 per megawatt hour from April 2027.

Eligible businesses are to be exempt from paying the indirect costs of the Renewables Obligation, Feed-in Tariffs and the Capacity Market. The consultation seeks views on the proposed approach and how businesses eligible for the scheme should be selected.

By bearing down on costs across the energy system, we expect to deliver BICS and ensure that the scheme is delivered in line with our wider priorities to deliver affordable power for businesses and households. For example, the proposals in DESNZ's recent consultations on RO/FiT indexation, if implemented, could contribute to that goal.

This is a government that is not agnostic about the fate of British industry, and British manufacturing. Given a fair business environment, our industry, our workers can out compete any others in Europe and most across the world.

We do not believe that the industrial capability of Britain should be solely at the whim of the international market, or foreign governments. Instead, our Industrial Strategy is a marked departure from the ‘hands off’ approach of the past, seeing the UK government working in close partnership with UK industry to support private sector investment and growth – just as other developed economies have done and continue to do.

This scheme is just one of these steps under our new approach to support British businesses to remain globally competitive. I encourage Hon Members contact businesses in their constituencies who stand to benefit from our British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme and to make their views known before the consultation closes on the 19th January.

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