What “Fixing the Foundations” means for Impact

Issue 97 l Eka’s Weekly Roundup (Tuesday 5th November)

Nov 05, 2024

It’s been (almost) a week since Rachel Reeves announced her inaugural budget. In this edition, we’ll be diving into the key policies and funding figures for Impact themes: climate and health.

If we’ve missed anything, don’t be shy and share your thoughts with us in the comments below 👇

UK budget breakdown: the impact lens

🌱 Part 1: Climate

Last week, the budget covered a variety of climate areas including more information on Great British Energy, dedicated $2b worth of hydrogen investment, and an increase in private jet rates from 2026.

📊 Headline figures & policies

£125m allocated for Great British Energy in 2025-26. The government will spend £125m on the publicly owned company with the aim of accelerating investment into renewable energy. As the FT reported, there is some confusion about how the £125m figure matches up against the £8b pledge from earlier in the year from now until mid-2029.
£4b dedicated for clean energy projects across hydrogen and carbon capture. This will go to ‘clusters’ across the UK including contracts with 11 hydrogen producers. Our read is that this is a subset of the initial £22b investment outlined earlier in the year (see video below explaining this in more detail).
£3b over the next three years for homes’ heat decarbonisation. This includes fuel poverty schemes and boiler upgrades. There is also funding to upgrade the UK’s heat pump manufacturing supply chain in order to support heat decarbonisation.
CBAM implementation due for 2027. This will place a carbon price on goods coming into the UK which are essentially ‘importing’ in CO2e emissions. This impacts heavy industry sectors including aluminium, cement, fertiliser, hydrogen, and iron & steel sectors.
Grid connections getting fast tracked? The government plans to accelerate grid connections and build new network infrastructure, working with the National Energy System Operator and Ofgem to develop a robust grid connection process.

🤔 What was left unsaid?

What about the skills transition necessary for these investments? The budget highlighted investments in energy projects and infrastructure but didn’t address how the UK workforce will be prepared for this transition (*there is a slight mention of the Energy Profits Levy capital allowance). The Green Alliance wrote an interesting piece earlier this year on the workforce transition, and there are many interesting companies in the space tackling this (i.e. Greenworkx, Gauge19, or Leafr).
Charting an implementation roadmap. Before you read this, you should know that Budgets don’t publish implementation roadmaps so this is potentially an unfair criticism. The £125m for Great British Energy and the £3b for heat decarbonisation are significant, yet there was little detail on how these funding schemes would work and/or how success would be evaluated.
What is the role for UK (and international!) startups in delivering these projects? How will the government interact with startups and innovations when delivering these projects? The budget did not include specific mentions of partnering with high-growth startups to achieve their climate aims.

As is often the case, the government will follow up in later weeks about more detailed implications from their Budget statements. For now, here’s a video from earlier in the year when Labour pledged £22b to carbon capture.

🫀Part 2: Health

We’ve started writing LinkedIn posts with Healthtech 1 - we will be linking in their take later today here. For now, see our initial takeaways from the Budget for the NHS & the broader health system.

📊 Headline figures

£23b resource spend increase for the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). This figure is the difference between the 2025-26 cycle relative to the 2023-24 cycle. In the base year, NHS England funding was 96% of resource spending with stays (broadly) steady in the 2025-26 cycle.
Autumn Budget (p.86)
4.0% “real” growth in spending for NHS England. This is the highest since before 2010. This is marginally higher than the overall resource DHSC (3.4% real growth over two years).
£2b invested in NHS technology and digital. The government will invest >£2b across the NHS across a wide range of initiatives including cyber, digital patient records, and the NHS app.
2% target for productivity improvement next year. This is linked to the technology target above (but there isn’t much detail below this figure). Additionally, the 2% productivity target is not unique to DHSC or the NHS, but has been set for all government departments.
(Not a number, but a sentiment: prevention getting its limelight?). Substantial mention of prevention across tobacco products and sugar intake. More to come in the 10 year plan…?

🤔 What was left unsaid?

Details on productivity initiatives are necessary to “fix the foundations” The key piece for us in this budget is the productivity number. The 2% productivity target for next year is, of course, across government departments including the DHSC. This comes after a comment on a £2b investment into broader NHS technology initiatives. But the budget was very light on detail about how exactly this productivity boost will be achieved within the DHSC. The huge spend increase should have more emphasis on the ROI behind the spend - otherwise the government runs the risk of splashing money at the problem without fixing the foundations.
Prevention as a focal point… but again low on detail. It is encouraging to see prevention strategies beginning to take center stage, particularly with measures aimed at reducing tobacco use and sugar intake. There was also mention of increased social care and local authority funding, which will be another step in the right direction for prevention.
(Understandably) a comprehensive 10 year plan - more to come in 2025! While the budget highlighted increased funding and new initiatives, many of these could be overturn or changed in their upcoming 10-year plan come early 2025. There was no mention of Palantir and the FDP, or details on the NHS app. Again we get that the Budget isn’t about appeasing all the health nerds, and that there are many many other important topics to cover including tax and defence… but as we look to next year, we do expect more clarity here.

These areas, if not addressed, could leave gaps in how the budget’s promises translate into tangible outcomes for the UK’s health system and its future resilience.