How Labour can unshackle Britain’s most innovative region
THE IDEA that Oxford and Cambridge are bastions of elite privilege runs deep. The two universities were among the first to be established in the Western world, in 1096 and 1209 respectively. Yet as dozens followed across Europe, it took 600 years for a third to come along in England. This was no mistake. By banning their graduates from teaching elsewhere, Oxford and Cambridge secured a monopoly for more than half a millennium—and with it an outsize role in national life.
It is an irony, then, that the academies’ contribution to the economy has been shackled by another set of regulations. The two cities are still recognised the world over as hives of thinking and innovation. But they are far too small, and they do not have access to the workers who would help turn great ideas into flourishing ventures, because for decades they have been choked by Britain’s planning laws. It is a problem that generations taught among the steeples and cloisters have persistently failed to grasp.
The chancellor, Rachel Reeves (New College, Oxon), hopes to remedy this by reviving the Ox-Cam Arc, which involves linking the two cities with a railway, and letting them and places in between build lots of houses and laboratories. This comes as part of a rebranding of the Labour government’s increasingly urgent search for growth. Sensibly, Ms Reeves has alighted on symbols, such as Oxford, Cambridge and Heathrow (where the government backs a third runway), that even distracted international investors will notice.
Her idea of allowing Britain’s most successful area to grow is hardly a novel one. Still, were it implemented, the effect would be big. By one estimate, the plan could add £14bn ($18bn) to annual GDP by 2035. That is the sort of prize which Britain, trapped between high debt and low growth, cannot afford to pass up. And it is just the sort of obvious idea the country is fond of squandering. In 2022 Boris Johnson (Balliol, Oxon) ditched an almost identical plan in the face of NIMBYism and the charge that it would not help poorer regions.
Oxford and Cambridge can go toe-to-toe with the most innovative clusters. They file more patents per person than Boston, home to America’s biotech industry. Yet places like Boston and the Bay Area are bigger and more productive, creating spillovers. Hence the attraction of an Oxbridge powerhouse. It takes almost two-and-a-half hours to travel 106km (66 miles) from Oxford to Cambridge by train or car. The new, 90-minute line will complete a triangle with research-rich London, and link Oxford and Cambridge to Milton Keynes, which has strengths of its own. Clusters elsewhere show that strong links encourage risk-taking.
So far Ms Reeves has given a speech and approved some reservoirs. Now she needs action, which must involve redefining green belts to allow more building; Cambridge oozes potential in industries like biotech, but lacks 80,000 square metres of lab space. The chancellor should confirm the £7bn needed for the rail line and look at how to strengthen pension reforms designed to boost firms’ access to capital. She could also cajole the universities to do more, including giving better incentives for spinoffs.
In all this Ms Reeves’s great strength—and the reason she has a chance to succeed where Mr Johnson failed—is that her party does not rely on the votes of those most opposed to development. But she is exposed to an older, deeper grievance: many of her colleagues wanted the money to go to an alternative plan for boosting science activity in the poorer north-east.
Ms Reeves could point out that Cambridge is close to some poor places, too. But a stronger argument is that Labour’s pledge to improve Britain’s public services requires growth. If Labour wants growth and thinks global investors have a part to play, then the Ox-Cam Arc must be part of the answer. ■
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