AstraZeneca’s £450m Speke U-turn looks terrible for a pro-growth government

AstraZeneca has research operations in Cambridge, as well as the vaccine manufacturing plant at Speke, a suburb of Liverpool in Merseyside. Photograph: AstraZeneca

The announcement in March last year that AstraZeneca would be investing £450m to expand its vaccine plant in Speke in Liverpool was presented in full flag-waving style by the company and the government of the day.

Sir Pascal Soriot, the AstraZeneca chief executive, reflected it had been 25 years since the merger of Astra of Sweden and Zeneca of the UK; the firm was now “truly global” but also “proud of our British roots”. Jeremy Hunt, then the chancellor, said the £450m investment, plus £200m to expand its research facility in Cambridge, was “a vote of confidence in the attractiveness of the UK as a life sciences superpower”.