Back in 2019, the UK government laid out its ambitious plan to ‘level up’ the country, tackling regional inequalities and encouraging private sector investment outside London and the South East. A lot has happened since then to hamper progress, but fast-forward to today and levelling up is firmly back on the national agenda.

One way the government intends to boost productivity, jobs and living standards is by ramping up domestic public investment in R&D beyond the Greater South East of England by at least 40 per cent, as revealed in its Levelling Up White Paper. But this injection of funding comes alongside a hike in private industry investment, with a 17.5 per cent increase in R&D spending from big industrials in Q3 2021.

On the one hand, this signals the next stage in the UK’s recovery from Covid-19. On the other – without diving too deep into the politics – there’s no denying it comes at a time when the Conservative Party needs public support...