Richard Rogers’ buildings are known for their inside-out architecture. The Inmos microprocessor factory in Newport, south Wales, completed in 1982, is no exception. Like the Pompidou Centre in Paris and the Lloyd’s headquarters in the City of London, the factory’s services run on the building’s exterior through multicoloured pipework, freeing the chipmaking “clean rooms” of internal columns.

It does not take much imagination, though, to see the ageing factory as an expression of the UK’s inside-out, upside-down policy on semiconductors.

It belongs to Britain’s largest semiconductor producer, Newport Wafer Fab, which was bought last July by Nexperia, a semiconductor maker controlled by China’s Wingtech Technology. The company’s fate has sparked debate over whether a policy to support the British semiconductor industry with grants, takeover protections or direct investment is necessary.