Leaving the EU: Workers’ Rights

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. As I have tried to explain to other right hon. and hon. Members, whenever a new piece of EU legislation is brought into force, the Government will provide a report to the House so that the House can express its opinion on whether it enhances, reduces or changes workers’ rights, and when a Bill is introduced in this place that affects employees’ rights, there will be a requirement to consult businesses and trade unions on any impact, for better or worse, on workers’ rights. It will be for this House to decide what gets taken forward.

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has repeatedly discussed pay inflation in response to questions. The west midlands TUC has today published pay level analysis. My constituents are currently experiencing the worst pay squeeze in 200 years and are still earning less in real terms than in 2008. We cannot trust the Government on pay, so how can we trust them to deliver the workers’ rights that I, along with other hon. Members, have been trying to deliver with them as part of the withdrawal agreement Bill?

[Andrea Leadsom]

Again, I pay tribute to the hon. Lady for her efforts to get the withdrawal agreement Bill through the House. However, I must disagree with her. It is this Government who are committing to raising the national minimum wage to £10.50. We introduced the national living wage, our changes in the tax free allowance have taken millions of people out of tax altogether, and real wages are rising at their fastest level since 2015. There have been real increases in take-home pay for millions of workers, which is absolutely vital. This Government will always do everything we can to retain and enhance the rights of workers.

Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Gloria De Piero]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to make that point. What the headline figures that I have quoted do not tell us are the personal stories of hardship that our ex-miners and their widows are facing. The average weekly pension is not much more than £80 a week. It is hardly a sum that someone could live a luxury lifestyle on. MPS pensioners rightly feel aggrieved at seeing the profits from their pension investments being used to boost the Treasury’s coffers. An MPS pensioner from my constituency called into my office recently to show me his recent pension statement. He had received the news that, thanks to a 3.4% increase to his guaranteed pension and a 4.2% bonus, his pension was going up to the grand total of £74.71.

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend remind the Government that we are talking about deferred income earnt by miners, not a gift that we are blessing them with? It is the miners’ money, not anyone else’s.

[Gloria De Piero]

That is why it is clear that the 50:50 surplus sharing arrangement put in place when the Government became guarantor needs to be renegotiated.

UK Research Centre for Ceramics

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Wednesday 21st February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jack Brereton]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point and I totally agree that it is incredibly important that those skills come through. I have spoken to people from a number of businesses in my constituency, and they need more of those skills coming through, because we have the jobs and opportunities needed to absorb them. It is incredibly important, therefore, that we continue to see those skills coming through, and this research unit is about part of that.

We are all familiar with household ceramic goods, both functional and ornamental, but the ceramics sector is much wider than just the market for household goods. Increasingly, advanced and technical ceramics are being used across the global economy: thermal barrier ceramic coating is used in jet engines; ceramic armour is used in the defence industry; ceramics are used in semiconductors needed in electronics; bio-ceramics are making important advances for the medical sector, in operations and, in particular, prosthetics; solid oxide fuel cells are radically benefiting the energy market; and in the world of digitalisation and virtual reality, the concrete reality of ceramics still reigns, including in digital printing materials. We need to make sure that global Britain leads this industry—that it is our nation and Stoke-on-Trent that harness the power of the 21st century ceramics revolution. Global Britain should not be saddled with a £900 million annual trade deficit in ceramics, given that the products we make are the best in the world.

A UK research centre for ceramics would be a magnet for research, skills and design talent. It would support and expedite the journey from inspiration and early-stage research, right through to fully commercialised products and processes. It would be the go-to place for firms seeking to source and exploit the latest ceramic technologies.

Currently, the UK lacks the R&D infrastructure for seamlessly researching and exploiting the range of novel sintering technologies. That cannot go on. Sintering is the process of using heat or pressure to compact materials such as clay without the risk of liquefaction, which would destroy the material completely. It is a process that has long required a high level of expertise. Now, with advanced sintering—flash sintering—revolutionising the industry’s ability to transform the properties of input materials, and using significantly less energy across the process, we stand at the threshold of a new era of high productivity and exceptionally fine goods.

To be globally competitive, we need to provide the environment to facilitate that process, not least in respect of Stoke-on-Trent’s Lucideon, the development and commercialisation organisation that specialises in materials technologies and processes and is leading the sintering revolution. This is not about picking winners; it is about unlocking the doors for winners to walk through.

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. As chair of the all-party group on ceramics, I think there is no more important issue to discuss in the House than the future of the sector—

[Gareth Snell]

Six hundred and forty people disagree.

[Ruth Smeeth]

Well, they are wrong!

What are the hon. Gentleman’s views on celebrating the work that is already being done by the Ceramic Innovation Network, which is leading in this area? It is led by Lucideon, which is based in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), and is supported by organisations such as Steelite, Churchill and Dudson—I have to get my local companies on the record—which secure more than 20,000 jobs in our great city.

[Jack Brereton]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. As she says, the work that the industry is doing to ensure that the skills, technologies and advances we are seeing come through is critical. We need to continue that work and to do more to ensure that the whole industry is realising this technology revolution.

A UK research centre for ceramics would house an advanced ceramics campus, which would in turn house a national advanced sintering centre to bring together world-leading higher education institutions and industry, to create a hub for UK sintering R&D. That would deliver the step change that we need in the UK’s research capacity for pioneering advanced ceramics.

A ceramics campus could also encapsulate the recently formed AMRICC—the Applied Materials Research, Innovation & Commercialisation Company—which envisages pilot lines in field-enhanced sintering, ceramic construction materials, combined process and product-batch trials, and mainstream ceramics sector processing techniques. The pilot lines are designed to boost productivity, commercialise research, encourage disruptive technologies and, at the same time, support decarbonisation through waste-heat capture and the electrification of the industry’s considerable heat production.

A ceramics campus could be the new home for Lucideon, which is looking to expand considerably, aiming to nearly double its workforce. Together, the companies advocate the further development of specialist equipment and technicians for the benefit of the wider industry.

The ceramics campus would not be alone at the UK research centre for ceramics. It is envisaged that there would also be an international ceramics centre on the site—a hub for design, fine art and crafts, and for ceramics that would draw in designers, artists, architects and materials scientists from all over the world for expert training in the ceramics field. The ideas generated could be expected to provide some of the most eye-catching public art in history, making the research centre come alive for a much wider audience than just ceramics professionals. It would be an asset in the UK’s business tourism offer and would complement the city’s already blossoming tourism industry.

If the industry is to continue its current export success, it needs to be ready for the opportunities that will come from leaving the European Union and championing British products around the world. For this, a research centre could house an in-house ceramics sector expert in international trade. In addition, a facility for skills development, education, apprenticeships and training could keep UK ceramics internationally competitive and in high demand as the world-leader in products and technology. It is anticipated that as many as 600 people would find employment on the advanced ceramics campus directly, with several thousand jobs created in ceramics start-ups and spin-outs, and through the expansion of existing enterprises throughout the wider industry.

So why Stoke-on-Trent? It is the only natural home for a UK research centre for ceramics—it is the home of world ceramics and globally renowned potteries. Indeed, the plans and calculations for a research centre for ceramics are predicated on that centre being based on regenerated brownfield land in the city. The site would become a ceramics park, and would coincide with other developments that are coming to make Stoke-on-Trent a city that is truly on the up: development investment and civic renewal; a cultural renaissance including the British ceramics biennial; the BBC’s “Great Pottery Throw Down”; and our oh-so-nearly successful bid to be UK City of Culture in 2021. Historic England has announced a heritage action zone in my constituency to enhance our local industrial heritage and give it a commercial future, particularly through gains from the visitor economy. Massive transport investment is planned, including HS2, roads, wider rail and the rebirth of our city’s historic canal network.

No other city is better placed for access to the major cities of both the northern powerhouse and the midlands engine, not to mention international markets, with four international airports within an hour’s drive of the city. Both the BCC and Lucideon are already based in Stoke-on-Trent and, despite the truly shocking roll call of major names lost under the Blair and Brown years, the Potteries are still home to a huge number of world-leading brands in the industry, such as Steelite, Portmeirion, Burleigh, Wade, Dudson, Duchess, Churchill, Dunoon, Ibstock, Johnson Tiles, Emma Bridgewater and Wedgwood. Those are aside from the array of smaller-scale producers across the city tapping into and enhancing our identity as the place to be for ceramic artists and craftspeople.

The industry is also a massive draw to the city, with a burgeoning tourism sector focused around ceramics from the iconic Gladstone Victorian Pottery Museum to the award-winning World of Wedgwood, which I am pleased to inform the House has recently won the VisitEngland gold accolade. Stoke-on-Trent is home to the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, housing the world’s largest collection of British ceramics.

Staffordshire University has a strong legacy with the institutions from which it was formed; the colleges of art, which came from across the Potteries, trained the likes of Clarice Cliff and Susie Cooper. The university has been awarded £200,000 to support growth and innovation in the ceramics industry from the Higher Education Funding Council for England catalyst fund. Partners include the BCC, AMRICC, Lucideon and Wade Ceramics. Although that goes a significant way, and there is much that our city can give, there is still much that our city needs in support. Our record on social mobility is not good enough, our educational outcomes lag behind, we are not yet matching the productivity rates of our competitors, and, despite recent herculean efforts to improve, we still do not have enough of the high-skill, high-value jobs that a world manufacturing centre should enjoy.

Historically, the ceramics industry has provided women with opportunities that other industries have failed to provide. Today, the name of Emma Bridgewater is well known, and so too are the names of artists such as Anita Harris, Emma Bailey, Susan Rose and Denise O’Sullivan. Over the past century, there were many more famous woman potters, including Charlotte Rhead, Clarice Cliff, Edith Gater, Susie Cooper and more. We need to encourage more great names of the future. I am grateful to the Crafts Council for highlighting the fact that the numbers of students taking ceramics bachelor degree courses, and design and technology GCSEs, have reduced significantly in recent times. By enhancing and signposting the clear high-value career paths of the ceramics industry, it is hoped that a future ceramics park will encourage a much greater take-up of courses and get more of the skills that people need back into this growing sector.

As well as opening up careers for all in manufacturing and art and design, the ceramics industry offers career paths in everything from marketing to accountancy, and from information technology to customer services. It is, as the Ceramic Skills Academy says, an industry full of opportunity, and this fits very well with the industrial strategy.

I am particularly delighted to let the Minister know that the ambition for the UK’s research centre for ceramics, based in Stoke-on-Trent, has been tested against all 10 pillars of the Government’s modern industrial strategy. It will manifestly invest in science, develop skills and provide training opportunities. In terms of upgrading infrastructure, the ceramics park will convert a brownfield site into a thriving, publicly accessible research park. Businesses will be supported to grow and start up, ensuring that research and development is commercialised to the advantage of the UK firms on and off site. A research centre will help the industry to ensure that public sector procurement processes recognise the excellent benefits from UK-manufactured ceramics products. The ceramics park, equipped with an international trade expert, will encourage trade and inward investment. Through heat capture and other technologies, the park can deliver affordable energy and clean growth. It will be directly connected to the new district heating network.

The ceramics park will cultivate the UK’s ceramics sector and help to restore it to the health that it has previously enjoyed in some of the sub-sectors that have suffered acute decline. By strengthening the industrial cluster of ceramics in and around the Potteries, the ceramics park will be hugely beneficial in rebalancing our country’s economic geography. Finally, the ceramics park will bring together in one place the institutions and sectoral innovators that the UK’s ceramics sector needs to face the future as a dynamic contributor to a global Britain.

My appeal to the Minister is that he helps us to deliver this ambitious and exciting vision. In the short term, support is needed to develop and fully specify the proposals for the ceramics park in line with the process for similar centres of excellence supported by the Government. There will be a need for limited funding from Whitehall to support such things as infrastructure, but that will in turn leverage much greater investment locally and nationally from businesses, public bodies and academic institutions.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) has previously corresponded with the Department about the early stages of this vision. I was delighted that a ministerial response in November last year spoke of “active consideration” and “an initial response”, assuring us that

“it is pleasing to see the Ceramic Sector being so positive about the future opportunities.”

I would be grateful for an update on the Department’s welcome input and its intent.

I want Stoke-on-Trent to be a city for ideas, ambition and achievement. I want Stoke-on-Trent to enjoy a £1 billion a year ceramics economy, and for our visitor economy to be boosted with ceramics-related and ceramics-inspired tourism. It is a UK research centre for ceramics, based in Stoke-on-Trent, that can make my dream come true. It can unlock our true potential for innovation and success, giving us a competitive edge internationally. I look forward to the Minister’s support tonight.

Industrial Strategy

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Everyone should be seeking to build confidence in the UK economy. We make it clear in the industrial strategy that some of the UK economy’s strengths are that we are an attractive place for business to locate, which is why we are one of the biggest places for inward investment around the world, that we create more new businesses than any other country, that we are a competitive place with no sheltering for incumbents, and that we are a place of low taxes in which enterprise is rewarded. Those things are foundational to our success, and I cannot understand why any party would want to set itself against that.

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has already praised the wonderful ceramics industry, which has its home in Stoke-on-Trent, and the work done by the British Ceramic Confederation for the past two years on developing an industrial strategy. It is great to see a photo of my sector on page 224 of the White Paper, but we really need a strategy for Stoke-on-Trent, so will the Secretary of State meet me and my colleagues on the all-party parliamentary group for ceramics, which I chair, to discuss how we can move that forwards and develop what my constituency and city so desperately need?

[Greg Clark]

I am always keen to meet people from the ceramics industry and from Stoke-on-Trent and the surrounding area. It is a fantastic industry for the future as well as the present—great strides are being made. It is an endorsement of the approach in the Green Paper of asking whether we should have sector deals that there was such an emphatic yes that some sectors, including ceramics, submitted their own proposals, and I am keen to take them forward.

BAE Systems Military Air & Information Sites: Job Losses

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Claire Perry]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out that this is a very dynamic business, which has to respond to globally changing conditions. It employs almost 36,000 people right across the UK. He is also absolutely right to point out other opportunities. It is absolutely critical that we back these British businesses, focus on export opportunities and work together. Many of us represent constituencies affected by these sorts of announcements and we all fly the flag for one the most successful companies in the world—BAE Systems. Let us get on and do it.

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

Our thoughts are with the workforce and their families who have received such devastating news. Let us be clear that the people who build and develop our military platforms are as vital to our national security and sovereign capability as those who operate them. We simply cannot afford to lose their skills. Will the Minister commit to developing a defence aerospace strategy, and to meeting immediately unions and employers across the sector to ensure we are not in this position again and can retain our sovereign capability?

[Claire Perry]

Like me, I am sure the hon. Lady is very pleased that we now have an industrial strategy that focuses on these vital sectors, putting together sector deals working with unions, employers and government. The offer has been made to all sectors to come forward with deals. As I understand it, the aerospace sector deal is well advanced.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Joseph Johnson]

Significant attention was given in the Queen’s Speech to commitments to roll out new institutes of technology, to the extra £0.5 billion of spending that will be given to further education and to our target to deliver 3 million apprenticeship starts by 2020. High-quality further and technical education is an absolute priority for this country and this Government.

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

T6. The British ceramics industry owes its current success and future survival to the innovation and development of breakthrough technologies. With funds such as Horizon 2020 potentially disappearing along with our EU membership, will the Government assure me that domestic projects such as the advanced manufacturing research centre will receive support to keep us at the cutting edge?

[Joseph Johnson]

We remain committed to ensuring that the UK remains the go-to place for science, innovation and tech investment in the years ahead. We want to remain open to collaboration and research partnerships with institutions across the European Union and around the world as we negotiate our departure from the EU.

Fourth Industrial Revolution

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Havant (Mr Mak) and my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) on securing this crucial debate.

I am proud to represent the greatest city of the first industrial revolution. [Interruption.] I thought I was going to get away with that. In Stoke-on-Trent, we pioneered the modern ceramics industry, as visionaries such as Josiah Wedgwood and Thomas Minton transformed the very landscape, with the pot banks and factories of a world-conquering industry. The clay and coal beneath our feet fuelled a vast, dynamic economy and funded the great civic buildings and canal networks that still stand in testament to that industry. With last week’s news that Churchill China is planning to invest in new jobs and machinery in the city, building on the additional investment at Steelite, that legacy is very much alive to this day.

For my city and my constituents, who have worked the clay for generations, the path to prosperity lies in the renewal of British industry and in the creation of a prosperous, balanced economy that utilises all of our country’s strengths—our creativity, technical acumen and the knowledge gained from hundreds of years of craftsmanship. Advances in modern technology and material engineering present an opportunity to rebuild a local economy and to celebrate a city far too often overlooked. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hove mentioned, such new horizons are already visible in the ceramics industry, in which advances in material transformation mean that ceramic technology could and should be utilised in new and extraordinary ways, from bone transplants and hip replacements to mobile transmitters and energy conductors. Trials have even been done on lightweight ceramic body armour to protect the next generation of British armed forces.

We now need to make these ambitions a reality for my constituents, and to lay the groundwork for a truly 21st-century ceramics industry in the city that has led it since the 19th century. Plans for a new hub for materials research in the city—the applied materials research and innovation centre—are already under way, supported by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Imperial College London and Cambridge University, which demonstrates that Stoke-on-Trent and the UK really are leading the way.

This revolution has the potential to unleash extraordinary economic growth and to improve our quality of life greatly, and we must seize this opportunity to create an economy that works for everyone. We must harness these new technologies to breathe new life into traditional industries and lead a renaissance in British manufacturing. Let us be clear that this, and no less than this, is required. The fourth industrial revolution has the power to drive our country and our communities forward to a brave new world of scientific discovery, material comfort and sustained economic growth.

I wish, however, to sound a note of caution to those who assume that greater prosperity and opportunity are a foregone conclusion. We should not fear change, but we must support our communities to adapt to new industries and new opportunities, because with great change can come great upheaval and economies can develop and adapt in ways we cannot always predict. There can be unforeseen consequences from an economic boom pursued without care. The true mark of a strong economy is that it allows each of us to live comfortably and well, without hunger or want. Losing sight of that aim results in ever greater disparities in wealth and opportunity, to the detriment of us all. Progress may be inevitable, but prosperity is not. Our own actions will determine whether the promise of this fourth industrial revolution is realised, and whether its opportunities will be accessible to the many or the few.

The fourth industrial revolution needs to be guided in such a way as to provide equality of opportunity and balanced regional investment. Communities such as mine in the post-industrial regions, long neglected by successive Governments and lacking the resources to retrain and upskill our workforce, could be hit hardest if we get that wrong. The challenge we face is not only to capitalise on the new technologies but to ensure that the rewards are distributed equitably and that everyone has the chance to get ahead. That is why we need a Government who provide businesses, workers and entrepreneurs with the support they need.

For Stoke-on-Trent, that means a coherent industrial strategy that plays to our strengths in ceramic manufacturing and engineering, and supports us to develop the associated industries that any successful city regeneration is built on. During my first year in Parliament, I have been working with local employers, businesses and universities to do just that. Supported by the Staffordshire chamber of commerce, we are working to develop a clear industrial strategy for our city, with a set of achievable goals to improve our infrastructure, tackle our skills shortages and secure the inward investment that we desperately need.

Throughout our city, there is recognition that a piecemeal approach to economic renewal is not enough. We need a long-term plan that sets out to tackle the particular obstacles we face. That means overcoming the challenges in skills and education and offering greater opportunities for our young people, not just in traditional trades but in digital technology, coding and advanced materials. I welcome the Government’s decision to lift the age cap on apprenticeships to allow more people to learn new skills and trades, but we must also work to open people’s eyes to the many new industries that are being thrown open by the digital revolution.

We also need a fresh commitment to lifelong learning, so that people can learn new skills throughout their lives and adapt to an ever more fluid labour market. So much potential is wasted because people are not being granted the opportunity to develop themselves throughout their working lives.

Cities such as Stoke-on-Trent also need investment in the critical infrastructure needed to grow our local economy, whether that be transport links or superfast broadband. Projects such as the ceramic valley enterprise zone are a very welcome boost, but I fear that they are not sufficient in isolation to deliver a strong local economy. A full infrastructure evaluation of our northern and midland cities would show that the Government are committed to building an economy that works for every nation and region, and help to put flesh on the bones of the so-called northern powerhouse. We need an industrial strategy that supports businesses that want to expand or to invest in new technologies—especially new ceramic technology—and supports R and D into those new technologies, as we saw with the breakthrough in graphene technology at Manchester University.

Britain can and must lead the way in this revolution, but we must also ensure that opportunity and rewards are spread fairly. We must understand that the faster our society changes, the more people are at risk of being left behind. By investing now in skills and infrastructure to give everyone the chance to excel, we can overcome those challenges. That is why I urge the Government not to sit back and let events take their course but to invest in the skills, training and infrastructure that we need right now, right across the country, to ensure that everyone has the chance to fulfil their potential. We need to ensure that the opportunities presented by the fourth industrial revolution are open to all, not just a few. We need a commitment from the Government that they will invest in skills and education—in particular, in adult education—so that those whose jobs are at risk can find new, better and better-paid employment in new industries, and we need a genuine industrial strategy that supports the manufacturing and technology industries the length and breadth of our country.