There can be no greater example of Labour’s naive attitude to growth and business than its refusal to back an investment on Merseyside by British pharmaceutical pioneer AstraZeneca.

As the country’s biggest company, with a market value of £176 billion, AstraZeneca was a hero of the pandemic – rapidly developing the Oxford Covid-19 vaccine which saved countless lives in Britain and across the globe.

In failing to support the project Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves are committing an act of self-harm which makes a nonsense of their agenda to turn Britain into a science powerhouse.

Since Labour came to office there has been unlimited support for the public sector unions and scant recognition that private enterprise is the bedrock of prosperity.

Under the leadership of French boss Pascal Soriot, the company has established itself at the cutting edge of UK scientific, healthcare and medical research. It is precisely the type of firm the UK needs if it is to become the kind of bioscience and tech hub Rachel Reeves envisaged in her growth speech earlier this week.

AZ has already invested some £1 billion in a state-of-the-art pharma, open-access research centre in Cambridge which leads the way on cancer treatments.

The group has become frustrated with Labour penny-pinching over support for a world-class £450 million vaccine plant in an area of Liverpool desperate for new industry.

Starmer’s government cut support, originally promised by the Tories, in a grotesque example of failing to back the UK’s research and manufacturing capacity.

Pictured: The AstraZeneca headquarters in Cambridge (file photo)

Alex Brummer (pictured) has said there is no greater example of Labour’s naive attitude to growth and business than its refusal to back an investment on Merseyside by AstraZeneca

Chancellor Rachel Reeves during a business meeting with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer (and top executives from some of Britain’s major businesses in central London

The uncaring attitude of Labour towards Britain’s top company is totally at variance with policy in the United States where investment by AstraZeneca in research-based industries receives generous tax breaks and subsidies from federal and state government.

Last year the company revealed it is planning to invest some £2.9 billion on research and development in the US, taking advantage of financial incentives to bring more science and industry to the US.

In 2014 AstraZeneca (with the help of the Daily Mail) fought a lonely battle to avoid being taken over by American rival Pfizer which wanted to acquire its pioneering work on immunology treatments for cancer.

Since then, AZ shares have soared 589 per cent and it has now overtaken oil giant Shell to become the UK’s most valuable enterprise.

My greatest fear is that Labour’s neglect of one of the UK’s few global giants may eventually tempt it to up sticks and move its science, headquarters and share listing to the US. That would be a catastrophe.