Today the Department for Business and Trade convened the first meeting of the Critical Imports Council. This forum brings together experts from industry, academia and government to help ensure the resilience of those critical supply chains essential to the UK’s economic prosperity, national security and essential services. This meets the commitment made in the UK’s Critical Imports and Supply Chains Strategy, published in January this year.

The Council is central to delivering one of the Strategy’s priorities, forging and strengthening the relationships with business and academia that will help the UK adapt and thrive in an evolving global economy. This is part of our plan to improve Britain's long-term economic security and opportunity.

The Council, chaired by the Minister for Industry and Economic Security, includes representatives from the UK’s cutting-edge manufacturing, technology, logistics and transportation industries, and the world-leading supply chain expertise in our universities. The Council is responsible for:

• providing a forum for industry to identify barriers and other issues preventing the reliable and efficient importation of critical goods into the UK;
• enabling cross-sectoral collaboration and best practice sharing on approaches to build supply chain resilience and test potential policy interventions; and
• where appropriate, enabling joint government / industry development of interventions and allowing the sharing and discussion of evidence and insights

This first Council meeting builds on the considerable work done by the previous Minister and officials in developing the Critical Imports and Supply Chains Strategy and subsequent implementation. The link to the Strategy can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-critical-imports-and-supply-chains-strategy

We have published the membership of the Council on Gov.uk at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-ramps-up-work-to-secure-supplies-of-medicines-and-smartphone-chips.