Economic Growth and Employment

Andrew Miller Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the thoughtful speech by the hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller). He and I have a common interest in the supply chains that he ended his comments talking about. The Secretary of State knows that I have been working hard in the north-west region to improve the automotive supply chain. That is one of the solutions because we are now in a position to recapture work from countries to which work in the automotive sector was previously exported as a result of changes in those countries’ economies. As labour costs have risen, as they will continue to do inexorably in Poland and China for example, we will be able to start thinking about recapturing that work. There needs to be common ground there.

I want to correct one point: for the second time, the hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith) made a mischievous intervention concerning the previous Government’s record on deregulation. I think that the hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt) will back me up on this point because she attended the Regulatory Reform Committee assiduously when I was its Chair: we could count on one hand the number of times a Conservative Member turned up to the Committee in the last Parliament. Perhaps they are finding their road to Damascus at last.

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman and I spent many happy hours tinkering around the edges of much regulation but we did not really power into the important pieces of regulation. Does he agree that that is what the Government are now seeking to do?

[Andrew Miller]

That was certainly the case with the Regulatory Reform Committee—it used the framework of the House to make limited adjustments—but we should remember the legacy left by Sir William Sargent, who did an amazing amount of work leading the Better Regulation Executive and putting in place the framework now being utilised. To ignore his work would be an insult to a fine public servant.

On skills, I am pleased that the apprentice Minister or the Minister for apprenticeships—whichever way it is—is here. I understand that he has indicated his wish to visit West Cheshire college. He is most welcome to visit that fine college built with resources provided by Labour but I would like him to think about some issues, particularly the needs of apprentices and young people coming to train from areas of extreme deprivation. There are many simple things that he could urge the Treasury to think about. For example, in my area there are plenty of vocational courses leading to jobs in specialist sectors, yet young people from deprived areas who, had they stayed on at school, would have got free school meals get no support to help them eat when at college.

TTE training runs a good training centre in my constituency providing Cogent training courses—I recently had the great pleasure to attend the royal visit to the centre organised at the behest of the royal family. That training centre is doing fantastic work at the high end of the petrochemicals sector—with players such as Shell and Ineos Chlor—but it is having difficulty finding a financial solution to deal with the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises. The Secretary of State will know that in Germany the burden is often placed on the large players, which are encouraged to finance the supply chain. That is one possible solution but the important point is that we need a practical solution, otherwise we will have no way forward and the young people making themselves available to go on such courses will be—

[Andrew Bridgen]

The hon. Gentleman is being mischievous by suggesting that there was a great deregulatory fervour about the previous Labour Government. For the past eight months he has served assiduously alongside me on the Löfstedt review looking at the reform of health and safety law. Would that review have been carried out under the previous Labour Government? Should it have been carried out? If so, why was it not?

[Andrew Miller]

I do not want to be tempted to comment on the review because it would breach the embargo—of course, the hon. Gentleman and I have seen its contents—but I shall be happy to express my views publicly in days to come. However, there is a fair amount of agreement between him and me on this point so I ask him not to tempt me down that line.

Mention has been made of the serious issue of the science base. The Secretary of State has got to get to grips with the confusion in the university sector. A combination of things has impacted on the universities, such as the fees structure changes, the capital spend problems and the overseas student issue. Yes, it is welcome that millions of pounds are being spent on a graphene centre in Manchester, but would it not have been ironic that had these rules been in place, Andre Geim might not have been at Manchester university to make those fantastic discoveries? The Government have to think carefully about the possibility of damaging a £5 billion industry that provides us not only with a superb base for our own research and development and science-based companies, but with a huge export of knowledge, which improves our relationship with so many of the countries with which we do business. I urge the Government to rethink what they are doing in the university sector.