Aidan Burley
Main Page: Aidan Burley (Conservative - Cannock Chase)(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Gavin Williamson
My hon. Friend, who is a constituency neighbour of mine, makes a valid point. Alstom also has a significant impact on my constituency. Looking at how things are procured, the value that is gained over a long period and the investment, in terms of jobs, training and apprenticeships that are brought to the UK, are all incredibly important points that must be recognised in Government procurement.
Mr Aidan Burley (Cannock Chase) (Con)
I welcome the consensual nature and tone of my hon. Friend’s debate, and I just want to build on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy). Is my hon. Friend aware that under EU procurement rules there is actually the possibility that a Government can introduce what is called a socio-economic weighting to a bid, which means that they can put a value on bids from companies in their own country, notwithstanding the other bids that come from across the EU? We saw that with the Bombardier problem, where it was argued by the civil servants involved that, in order to fulfil EU procurement rules, we had to have equal weighting for all bids from across the EU. Actually, what other EU countries do is place a socio-economic value on companies from their own country. Should we not send out a message today to the civil service that we should be doing the same?
Gavin Williamson
That is certainly a message that I will heartily endorse, because Government decisions on procurement have a massive impact. Often there is a lot that can be learned from our continental counterparts, primarily about how to ensure that we support and benefit our own businesses.
I will now go a little bit away from procurement to return to exports, especially the importance of exports in the west midlands. Of course, much of what we are producing is for export, and as I mentioned, almost half of the UK’s exports are of manufactured goods. We hear an awful lot of talk about how we need to improve exports from the service sector and our creative industries, and about bringing in more tourists to the UK. Those are all incredibly important issues, but if we could achieve a 10% increase in the amount of manufactured goods that we export, that would have a much more significant impact on our balance of trade, job creation and the wealth of our nation.
I very much welcome the work that has already been undertaken by UKTI and I encourage it to do more. However, I will go back to the point I made earlier, to say again that it is very easy for us all to focus on the very large businesses but there are some fantastic businesses that are quite small, perhaps employing only 20 to 200 people, and quite often they fall under the radar. Recently I spoke to a constituent, Louis Barnett, who exports chocolate from Britain; Mexico is one of his largest markets. However, he did not understand about export guarantees, or what else was available. Now he is working very closely with UKTI and he has a much better understanding of the support that is available to help his business and many similar businesses. That is the message that we need to get across—that there is a vast market out there. It is not just the west midlands, or the rest of the UK; it is the world.
Mr Aidan Burley (Cannock Chase) (Con)
In the two and a half minutes that my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Margot James) has kindly let me have, I echo much of what has been said. Manufacturing is important to my constituency. The three towns making up my patch—Cannock, Hednesford and Rugeley—have a sizeable manufacturing and engineering base. More than 20% of my constituents are employed by manufacturing-centred small businesses. Manufacturing is vital to my constituents.
As Members have said, the west midlands and Cannock Chase are blessed with skilled workers in manufacturing. It is the ideal place for businesses to set up and invest. We have manufacturing firms of all sizes, including giants such as JCB Cab Systems, which employs more than 400 people, and ThyssenKrupp, which employs more than 900, right down to the small family firms with which my hon. Friends will all be familiar: Plum Logo, Mailcoms and Fuel Conservation Services, all of which employ between 10 and 30 people. All those firms are vital to supporting jobs and securing growth in our economy.
I have determined to visit as many of those firms as possible, not only to pay tribute to their hard work but to learn at first hand what challenges face local employers and listen to the views of employees. The three issues that have come up, which have been echoed in this debate, are training and skills, lending and promoting investment. I will not repeat the speeches made on those issues, but I want to impress on the Minister that it is vital to tackle the skills shortage in manufacturing in the west midlands and encourage more young people to take mechanical and engineering qualifications.
On bank lending I think, like many other hon. Members, that the pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction. Access to reasonable finance for firms that clearly have a future has become far too difficult. Ministers have a duty to remind the banks, which were so generously bailed out by taxpayers just a few years ago, that they have a moral duty to lend to viable small businesses to create jobs and growth. I have four seconds left, so with that I will hand over to the Minister, who we are all looking forward—