UK Automotive Industry

Debate between Jim Shannon and Mark Pawsey

Monday 18th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to take part in this debate on the UK automotive industry because I grew up in a village just outside the traditional heart of UK car manufacturing. One of my earliest memories, as I walked to primary school in the mornings, is workers returning home from the night shift at one of the many car factories that existed in Coventry at that time.

I am very much aware of the heritage of the automobile industry in my local area. In fact, we have two excellent local museums that display historic British cars: Coventry Transport Museum, in Coventry city centre, which includes Queen Mary’s 1935 Daimler and the iconic Coventry-built 1975 Jaguar E-Type, and the British Motor Museum, in Gaydon, where there are over 400 classic British cars from major manufacturers such as Austin, Morris, Hillman and Triumph.

Over my lifetime, I have seen huge change in the origin of the cars on our roads. In my early years, they were mostly domestically manufactured. In the 1960s, I looked out for European cars, such as the Volkswagen Beetle, and then in the 1970s we saw the introduction of Japanese cars, such as the reliable, small Datsuns. In recent years, the majority of cars on our roads have been manufactured outside the UK.

However, it is two-way traffic. While the proportion of imports has risen, so has the proportion of our exports, as the automotive market has become international rather than national or even continental. Now some 80% of our production is exported, generating £77 billion in trade, as buyers across the world recognise the kudos of UK brands such as Land Rover, Range Rover, Jaguar and Mini. At the same time, overseas-based manufacturers, seeing the opportunities provided by the UK’s membership of the European single market, chose to manufacture their vehicles in Sunderland, Derbyshire and Swindon and, more recently, there has been investment in Ellesmere Port, Oxford and south Wales.

I have raised the issue of heritage and the impact of personal ownership of automotives, as cars are not just another manufactured product. For most people, a car is the second most expensive item they will ever acquire and there are few other items where there is such an emotive personal connection. I do not know many people who could tell me what brand of fridge or washing machine they or their parents owned, but almost all will know what brand of car they drive and how they identify with it. We need to generate the maximum impact from our iconic brands.

There are not just emotional reasons for supporting UK manufacture; there are hard-nosed commercial ones as well, because automotive manufacture provides highly-paid skilled jobs. There are 160,000 jobs in the manufacture of automobiles, which is 0.6% of the UK total. That is even more significant in the west midlands, where 2.2% of all employees work in automotives, including many in my constituency of Rugby. A large number of employees work at the London Electric Vehicle Company at Ansty Park, in my constituency, and at Jaguar Land Rover at Gaydon, and many more work in the supply chain, such as at Automotive Insulations on Central Park industrial estate in Rugby and Lenoch Engineering on Somers Road.

In 2022, the manufacturing of vehicles and parts contributed £13.3 billion to the UK economy—it was 0.6% of UK total output.

[Jim Shannon]

When it comes to telling good news stories—it is always good to tell them in this Chamber—Wrightbus in Ballymena would be one, encouraged by this Government and this Minister. One thousand jobs were created in Ballymena, with those buses being sold all over the United Kingdom but also across the world. Therefore, when there are good news stories to tell, let us tell them.

[Mark Pawsey]

I agree wholeheartedly. It is great to see Wrightbus’s product on the streets in London.

Although important and significant, the sector has seen decline, particularly in the number of vehicles produced. We peaked at 1.5 million units in 2015; that dropped to 775,000. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders is projecting 860,000 units this year and 1 million by 2028—still lower than the peak years, but we generally produce higher-value cars, which is a key point to remember. The challenge for us is to maintain our volumes as the sector undergoes massive change. That arises from the worldwide move to electrically powered vehicles as a consequence of the imperative to reduce CO₂ emissions.

I still sit on the Business and Trade Committee. In October 2018, we produced a report on the sector, decarbonisation and the introduction of electric vehicles. I had to reread that report to remind myself that it was almost five years ago. We looked at the opportunities that would present themselves as we effected the transition from internal combustion engine-powered cars. Many of the issues that we considered five years ago are still relevant, but in other areas we have made progress. In August, almost four in 10 new cars that were sold in the UK had some form of electric power, with 20% being purely battery electric, 7.7% plug-in hybrids and 6.8% hybrid, in a market that grew by 24.4% over the previous years.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) spoke about the role of the consumer. Most car drivers know that electric vehicles are coming. Most people will know someone who drives one, or who speaks enthusiastically about it and is preparing for that change. Most people by now have already been driven in an electric vehicle and, often, that will be an electric London taxi, manufactured in my constituency. On that pathway, the London Electric Vehicle Company has a pioneering role in the sector. In many cases, the move to electric will be championed by the cabbie, because every cabbie who drives an electric vehicle will speak very highly of it, compared with the diesel alternative. However, there remain those who are not convinced by the need to decarbonise or to move to electric vehicles as the solution, and there will also be people who do not support the ambition to get to net zero by 2050.

Male Primary School Teachers

Debate between Jim Shannon and Mark Pawsey

Wednesday 16th November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. Thank you for calling me to speak—it is not often I am called straight after the Member who moves the motion, but it is a real pleasure. I thank the hon. Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) for leading the debate. He leads on many things in Westminster Hall. I have been there to support him when he has spoken on other subjects in education and I wanted to continue to do that.

There is no doubt that this conversation needs to be had. For some time now, the trends and statistics across the whole United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland have shown that male teacher figures have either dropped or lulled. Whatever the reasons for that, and there are many reasons indeed, we must do more to encourage men—especially young graduates—to get into the world of teaching. We must also play a key role in destigmatising those reasons as to why men are put off and discouraged from getting into the profession.

In previous debates to which the Minister has responded, I have tried to bring a Northern Ireland perspective. That perspective in relation to male teachers will replicate the very point made by the hon. Member for Mansfield in his speech and by others in their interventions. Male teachers are under-represented in the primary school teaching workforce in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The stats for Northern Ireland are just as bad as those cited by the hon. Member for Mansfield. Back home, just short of 23% of all teachers are male; in primary schools, only 15% are male.

In the ’60s and ’70s, I went to a boarding school—it was many moons ago, so I will see how far back I can go on that—where we had only one female teacher. The rest were all male teachers. I suspect that the trends have changed and, where it might once have been male dominated, it is now very clearly female dominated. My three boys went to Grey Abbey Primary School. Before the new principal joined 15 or 20 years ago, it was a female-only school: all the teachers were female; the principal was female. That has not changed very much over the past few years.

The figures for Northern Ireland have decreased over the past decade. The most recent figures for Northern Ireland, from ’21-’22, show that there are some 4,800 male teachers in Northern Ireland, compared with 16,160 women. The percentages are quite clear—it is about 23%. That shows a trend. How do we address that? That is what the hon. Member for Mansfield was asking. We have to look at that.

I appreciate that this debate is about primary school teachers, but I would just add, to show the extent of the problem—the hon. Gentleman might already know this—that we do not one male nursery teacher anywhere in Northern Ireland. I am quite perturbed by that as well. I understand that trend when it comes to nurseries; there is a perception that it is always girls working in nurseries, and the facts show that it is. Those statistics alarm us greatly. To address them, we must look at the reasons why this is the case not just in Northern Ireland but across the whole of this great nation.

One of the main issues is peer pressure. Men are often socialised to believe that teaching is a female-led job that requires extensive care and nurturing. That is wrong, but it may be a feeling that we have and an issue in society that needs to change. If we are going to make that change, we need to make teaching as attractive to males as it is to females. Despite all that, men statistically tend to end up in higher authority roles—for example, as senior teaching staff or school principals. I do not know whether that is to do with their age or whatever it may be, but there are certainly trends there that need to be looked at. That has been seen as a faulty or illegitimate argument that plays into “anti-gender role” rhetoric. None of this should not come at the expense of decent classroom teaching; merit and effort should mean more than just gender.

It saddens me that there have been narratives of males seeking employment in teaching to display their dominant characteristics. People say that, and that might filter through society. That is wrong, but if it does in any way knock people out of kilter, we have to address it. It further marginalises men who want to be teachers and to support and encourage our young people as they go through their education. Those narratives are simply not the case and are simply not right.

Male teachers are capable of being role models—the hon. Member for Mansfield set that out very well. Society is not broken, but young boys need a male figure in their lives to focus on, and male teachers are capable of being role models to both boys and girls. It is good for children to see that male teachers can be kind and encouraging. The hon. Gentleman referred to them as being caring, and they are. Compassion and understanding are not exclusive to one gender. There has been an assumption that male teachers can play a crucial role in a young child’s development, especially if they come from a family with only a single parent or mother.

I am not being critical, Sir Gary—it is not my form—but I just want to make this point, which was brought to my attention through my engagement with things we are involved with in my office and from talking to teachers. Fatherless children have been shown on some occasions to stray and to get involved in addiction issues, whether it be drugs or alcohol. As the hon. Gentleman referred to, having a male figure in their life can—not on all occasions—help to maintain an element of stability and give a child a role model outside the home, so that they feel less pressurised.

A former Secretary of State for Education initiated a £30,000 grant for a project run by the Fatherhood Institute that aims to break down the barriers that dissuade men from starting childcare careers and to tackle the myth that men are less suited to caring roles. As I said, compassion and understanding transcend all genders across society. I was interested in the comments made by the hon. Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) about his daughter. Those were my thoughts too coming into this debate. He illustrated the point well through his daughter’s comments, and I wholeheartedly agree with him.

[Mark Pawsey]

My daughter thinks the staffroom is a better place from having a mixture of genders in it. Male and female teachers can engage with each other in the workplace. The perspective of a male teacher may be slightly different from that of a female teacher, and the opportunity to share those experiences in the staffroom is important.

[Jim Shannon]

I absolutely agree. The hon. Gentleman is fortunate to have such a wise daughter, who seems to understand the position of a teacher in school with great wisdom and knowledge. I wholeheartedly agree that that mixture and blend would be better for us all.

I always respect the fact that the rules are different here, as they might be in other regions across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but we have a UK-wide problem. I understand that the Minister does not have to answer for Northern Ireland, but whatever he answers will be the template for all of us across the four regions, because the issues are the same. The dearth of male teachers in primary schools is the same, but how do we address it?

I encourage the Minister to take the lead for all of us. I will certainly be sending the Hansard copy of the debate to my Minister back home and probably to some of the schools as well to let them know what we are doing. I ask the Secretary of State for Education to engage in an in-depth discussion with his counterparts in all the regions about further action on encouraging and incentivising more male teachers. If we can do it here, we can do it everywhere. What we can learn here can be replicated back home. What we have done back home might be of help as well.

Back home, teaching courses have a decent number of male students, but there is clearly a barrier—I am not entirely sure why—that stops them fulfilling teaching roles in schools. We must fix that. If someone has a desire to teach and to be in education, that desire needs to be encouraged in whatever way it can to get males working in primary schools. We must ensure that the blockades are removed to help increase the numbers of male teachers.

Again, I congratulate the hon. Member for Mansfield on securing this debate. It is a very worthy one, and I look forward to the speech by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan), who always brings knowledge to these debates, and particularly to the Minister’s speech.

Business to Business Selling

Debate between Jim Shannon and Mark Pawsey

Tuesday 19th April 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered business to business selling and encouraging jobs and growth.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark. I am delighted to have finally secured this important debate to consider the importance of business-to-business selling, which I will refer to as B2B; why there needs to be a selling revolution; and what needs to be done to upskill the B2B sales workforce—particularly in small and medium-sized enterprises—and to encourage more people to train in B2B selling. Finally, I will set out some measures that the Government could take to encourage professional sales both at home and abroad.

This debate was prompted by my chairmanship of the all-party parliamentary group for professional sales and by my 25 years’ experience of selling. Like most people who end up in sales, I had no intention of becoming a salesperson. Few people set out to make that their career path, but they end up there through other routes. As a business-to-business salesperson, I spent 25 years driving the motorways of Britain to talk to my customers and understand their needs. As a manager of B2B salespeople, I helped my sales team to win business, grow the business I was working for and drive prosperity.

It is with the benefit of that personal experience that I argue that the UK would not function without business-to-business selling. It is a huge and important part of the economy. In many businesses there is a saying: “Nothing gets made until a salesperson has taken an order.” That is the importance of the sector. Since I left the profession to come to Westminster 12 years ago, the job has become more demanding: it requires deep product knowledge but always with a high need for customer insight, empathy, communication skills, collaborative working, strategy and critical thinking.

Why is selling to business important? It is important to the economy and to create wealth, and it supports 10 million jobs. It is skilled work, and it was recently re-categorised as a profession by the Office for National Statistics. That upgrade in status was based on evidence that the majority of B2B sales job postings call for a degree and five years’ experience. It is an important fact that 80% of UK businesses make part or all of their turnover from selling to other businesses.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing forward this debate. As a salesman in my father’s shop way back in the very early ’70s, and then with Henry Denny, a pork products firm in Portadown, I fell into sales by accident, perhaps, but I recognise its importance. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that with trade deals across the world potentially coming through, there is a greater need for more salespeople to push buyers and achieve greater economic growth for all of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland—always better together?