Queen’s Speech

Lord Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 12th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jones (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I offer my congratulations on the maiden speeches and say farewell to the right reverend Prelate.

Britain needs a clear-eyed, long-term, ruthlessly executed industrial strategy. Surely early 21st-century Britain still needs manufacturing industries. We are certainly post-imperial but not necessarily post-industrial—not yet. So, I say yes to AI, the smartphone, cyber, the computer, the drone and the leading edge. However, my hope is that the Government will promulgate with conviction an industrial strategy that, at its core, proposes to save, sustain, protect, enhance and invest in what remains of our manufacturing. To be fair, no Government can wish away the impact of global influences, but Britain’s future prosperity and her front-line defence require our much-depleted manufacturing to be protected from further shrinkage.

I instance the steel industry. Steel is a foundation industry. Today, it is in a very shaky condition. Surely it should not be on the brink of being eroded away. This national industry should not be the creature of sleight of hand, of chance, of boardroom ambition or of money. A great nation requires a sound steel industry. Shorn of steel, Britain would quickly be of less consequence in the eyes of its international partners and rivals. National defence requires steel. Steel is war. It happens. Today, our magnificent Navy has a nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed fleet of submarines. Without the foundation industry of steel, that mighty deterrent would look increasingly ineffective. In 1970, when I entered the other place, British manufacturing approximated 20% of GDP. Today, it barely makes 10%. The nation that lets its seed-corn industries fail will perish.

Today, Britain’s steel industry survives largely on the south Wales coast, on the north-east coast and in my homeland of Welsh Flintshire. When the smokestacks fell in the late 1970s and early 1980s, redundancies rained down on our busy, prosperous steel communities. For example, male unemployment in some of the Shotton steelworks communities reached 20% or more. Huge sacrifices were made by many thousands of good people. What remains there at Shotton is leading-edge and profitable. Let us remember that, in yesteryear, these steel communities helped us defeat both the Kaiser and the Führer. They deserve the best of outcomes and their industry should be prioritised. Our remaining manufacturing needs more research grants, better-prepared school leavers, more effective world-class skilling and ever more enhanced links with our universities.

To conclude, the citizens of Hartlepool have made a devastating electoral statement. Let us heed it.