Manufacturing Sector

Debate between Alison McGovern and Nicholas Dakin

Wednesday 18th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Alison McGovern]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. It is a difficult story to tell. When a journalist or somebody from the media is taken to Vauxhall Motors or any number of big, exciting manufacturing locations, they can see what is happening. However, in the future, there will increasingly be smaller, more specialist suppliers. In addition to fuel costs, the quality of the product is another driving factor behind the business case for moving the supply chain closer to sites of production.

As we move towards higher-tech production and try to meet some of the challenges of the greener economy, we need a better quality of product. In terms of quality control, we might be looking at smaller, more specialist producers. It is difficult to tell that story, but it has to be done. As the BBC moves northwards, I hope that there will be lots of opportunities for those of us from the north-west to get these stories out there. It is a difficult challenge, but it is about telling a story of high quality.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this timely debate and I am pleased to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby. On the supply chain issue, I represent a manufacturing area so I know that it is important to consider the green economy, particularly renewables. Much of the investment in renewables will come from the Government and electricity bill payers. We need to have the imagination to ensure that those jobs come to the UK and to invest in the supply chain, which my hon. Friend has mentioned adroitly in her presentation.

[Alison McGovern]

My hon. Friend’s intervention is important. I will come to some of my specific questions for UKTI, about how it recognises not just the sectors that are already successful at a high level, but the sectors that are strategically placed for the future, even though they might be small at the moment. Green energy is certainly one of those. How are we going to ensure that Britain is selling green energy technology to Brazil, Russia, India and China in the future? We do not do much of it at the moment, but do we want to do it in the future? That is an important question to ask in terms of strategy.

I shall shift away from the supply chain specifically and on to UKTI’s strategy, which is contained in an interesting document that is important for all of us. I want to ask the Minister the following questions. The strategy identifies five groups with subsectors relating to five parts of the economy, one of which is manufacturing. Of those five groups, what will the resource balance be across UKTI?

It is easy to say that what we want is success and to drive resources towards the bits of the economy where we already have success in exporting parts abroad. We might also say that if we are really going to rebalance the economy, we need to take somewhat more of a risk with our resources and invest in those things with which we might not have had a history of high-level success over the past 10 or 15 years but in which we know we need to invest for the future. I would be interested in understanding a bit more about resource balance.

On monitoring, when we develop the strategy, how will we watch what happens and who will feed back to Parliament and to businesses on the ground? There has sometimes been a bit of a disconnect in terms of understanding to whom UKTI is responsible, who its customers are and how it feeds back successes. When will that happen? We do not want to spend all our time bearing the costs of monitoring, with a thousand tick boxes and charts.

Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Alison McGovern and Nicholas Dakin

Monday 11th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Nic Dakin]

I think that there was a large feeling at the Conservative party conference last week that the Conservatives should have done better in the general election, given that they faced a Labour Government who were clearly struggling in the face of many challenges. I am interested in the hon. Gentleman’s spin on the outcome of the last election, but the reality is that nobody won it. What has happened since is that the Government parties have shown skill in developing a narrative that runs along the lines of what the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Mark Simmonds) outlined—it was also added to by the hon. Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams)—which is essentially that everything comes down to Labour spending profligately and a massive deficit that needs to be tackled fast and furiously. That is the narrative, but it is not the truth. The truth is far closer to what we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw, who demonstrated that what has really happened is that our deficit lies alongside that of Germany. The problem is serious, but it does not require us to go as far as is being suggested.

[Alison McGovern]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is not merely we on the Labour Benches who disagree with the fake narrative that the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are putting forward, but the recent report by the International Monetary Fund and the International Labour Organisation? Those bodies have tried to persuade countries such as ours not to disinvest from the economy, because they are worried about jobs and employment.