The dying days of the last Conservative government were marked by a mania for cancellations of things that previous Conservative administrations had set in train. Industrial Strategy abolished and not replaced, reform of social care binned without an alternative, net zero policies deferred and HS2 scrapped.

That latter piece of vandalism was especially dispiriting. There is a sound imperative for investment to connect towns and cities. It's why other countries have done it. The so-called ‘agglomeration effect' whereby companies and workers are located closer to each other tends to give a wider choice for workers and for consumers. It provides bigger markets that allow a critical mass for companies to become more specialist in what they can supply.

This combination of choice, competition and specialisation drives up productivity and in turn, wages and growth. Places that are better connected are more enjoyable for people to live in, allowing them to pursue a wider range of interests and experiences than places that are small and isolated.

The Government's £2.4bn investment announced this month is a success for the case put forward by West Midlands mayor Richard Parker to ensure that the HS2 connection is leveraged across the region. 

So I am glad that the current Government is reviving the idea of using investment in connecting infrastructure as a key element in a long-term plan for growth. Last autumn Rachel Reeves set out an ambition to deliver a rail connection between Oxford and Cambridge – connecting two important sources of national economic growth and opening up sites for investment along the route. It turns out that this was not a one-off. Two weeks ago, the chancellor announced more than £15bn of funds for new transport infrastructure projects across the regions of England. The common denominator is that they are all about improving connections within our great cities and to their surrounding towns.

The exciting plan for the West Midlands is a good example of this. Even though lamentably truncated north of Birmingham, HS2 will transform connections between the West Midlands and the capital.

Anyone who has been to Birmingham recently will have been struck by the visible transformation taking place around the new Curzon Street station. Another new station near Birmingham Airport and the NEC – Arden Cross – will be home to a major development at which my university, Warwick, will be establishing a life sciences campus. It will be connected to the whole region and link directly with Imperial College's major expansion 30 minutes away at Old Oak Common in west London. Linking researchers in top class universities is another benefit of agglomeration.

The Government's £2.4bn investment announced this month is a success for the case put forward by West Midlands mayor Richard Parker to ensure that the HS2 connection is leveraged across the region. One of the first projects will be a metro line linking the HS2-equipped city centre to east Birmingham. This will allow the development of a new sports quarter in which Birmingham City FC owners, Knighthead Capital, will build a new stadium and sports-led district projected to create 8,000 jobs in an area with an unemployment rate of 14%.

Parker's aim – to be delivered through a mayoral development corporation – is to bring the metro link through East Birmingham and North Solihull to the HS2-driven development at Arden Cross, transforming the connectivity of Britain's second city regionally and nationally. It is hard to see that such a locally-driven project could have been developed, let alone funded, without the knowledge and connections of the mayors that are now such an important part of how England is governed.

Four years on from the last Government's abolition of the Industrial Strategy, the current Government will launch its own later this month. Clarity and stability of policy is the right thing to do for long-term prosperity. But it is also the case that such clarity of purpose can have a shorter-term dividend, as investors respond now to be part of those future plans.

An Industrial Strategy that has an aim to drive the benefits of agglomeration in the towns and cities of the UK is the type of long-term vision that can return us to better prosperity. It is good to see its revival.

Greg Clark is a former Conservative levelling up secretary and executive chair of the University of Warwick's Innovation District