Advanced Ceramics Industry: North Staffordshire

Debate between Chris McDonald and Allison Gardner

Wednesday 3rd December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Chris McDonald]

I know that my hon. Friend will be familiar with the benefit that sector strategies have had in other areas through his work as the vice-chair of the international trade and investment all-party parliamentary group. I take his comments very seriously and will absolutely consider them.

Last week, we launched a consultation for the British industrial competitiveness scheme. That is an opportunity for many thousands more additional manufacturing businesses to benefit from reduced electricity prices. I encourage the ceramics industry to participate in the consultation for that scheme. The Government are committed to ensuring that our electricity price support schemes continue to be targeted, effective and proportionate, and represent value for money for the British taxpayer. However, we are not stopping there.

I recognise that many ceramics businesses do not benefit from our electricity price support schemes due to their gas-intensive nature. For some of those businesses, electrification is possible, although it will require capital investment. For other businesses, there are currently no electrification options. Through our engagement with trade bodies, trade unions and businesses, we are working to consider all possible options for how we can help ceramics businesses further. I look forward to working with my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South and other hon. Members as we develop that work over the coming months.

Trade has benefited the UK, and we continue to go from strength to strength in negotiating trade deals. The Government are proud of the work that went into the India free trade agreement and the ongoing work on our free trade agreement with the Gulf Co-operation Council. The UK-India free trade agreement will see the immediate or staged removal of tariffs on ceramic exports to India, opening up access to India’s large and growing middle class for producers of consumer ceramics, as well as to India’s many infrastructure projects and manufacturing opportunities for UK businesses in the advanced ceramics sector.

The agreement will also include a comprehensive trade remedies chapter. That chapter, as well as reaffirming existing safeguard provisions, includes a bilateral safeguard mechanism that will allow the UK or India to temporarily increase tariffs or suspend tariff concessions if there is a surge of imports causing injury or threat of serious injury to domestic industry as a result of the tariff liberalisation set out in the agreement.

The UK has been negotiating a modern and ambitious free trade agreement with the Gulf Co-operation Council that will boost economic growth and increase investment in the UK. That deal will help to grow our economy and bring benefits to communities across the country.

[Dr Gardner]

Do I take it from the Minister’s response that we will have some help to prevent china-dumping? GMB and great campaigners such as Sharon Yates have been campaigning to stop the huge foreign imports that are coming in and damaging our locally and British-made products.

[Chris McDonald]

By elucidating the trade deal with India and the deal that we hope to strike with the Gulf Co-operation Council, I am hoping to outline the fact that there is not only a commitment to trade that will enable UK producers to access markets, but a commitment to fair trade. That is far easier done within the bounds of a free trade agreement where there are existing mechanisms in place. That is why our Department is working so hard to ensure that we get additional coverage of free trade agreements through various jurisdictions around the world.

Turning back to the Gulf Co-operation Council agreement, the UK is currently a net importer of ceramics from the Gulf states. Reducing UK tariffs has been identified as one of the GCC’s priorities. Our objective is to secure provisions that support competitiveness and growth across the UK while safeguarding UK manufacturing interests.

I understand that there is more work to be done to support our local ceramics firms that may be at risk from cheap imports from abroad. The standard response to this—I will give it and then qualify it, if that is acceptable—is to encourage ceramics companies to engage with the Trade Remedies Authority. However, I am aware of the significant burden that imposes in terms of cost and time, so I would encourage hon. Members who are in touch with ceramics companies in their areas—I will continue my engagement with Ceramics UK—to carefully monitor the ability of those companies to engage with the Trade Remedies Authority and to ensure that it is possible for their issues to be raised. If there are concerns about time and cost, I would appreciate it if they were raised with me directly.

[Chris McDonald]

It is a very technical issue, and I have thought of little else since my hon. Friend explained it to me in great detail a few days ago. I will certainly commit to continuing to think about it, and I thank him for bringing it to my attention and placing it on the record.

[Dr Gardner]

Regarding trade, exporting to the EU is particularly challenging, and I look forward to any trade deals we may see from there to help with that.

[Chris McDonald]

Yes, I recognise that. Any further improvements in relation to our nearest and largest market would certainly be welcome.

Clearly, decarbonisation will require further innovation, and I commend industry and academia on the groundbreaking research they have conducted, which I know my hon. Friend has vigorously supported. I recognise the work of Lucideon; it is an organisation I know well, and it is indeed a world-leading developer of research and innovation for the ceramics sector. I also recognise the work of its AMRICC centre—the Applied Materials Research, Innovation and Commercialisation centre—and the Midlands Industrial Ceramics Group, which have benefited from direct grant support. My hon. Friend also asked about engagement with the National Wealth Fund. I will be happy for my office to provide contact details for a direct conversation to take place.

My hon. Friend made a point about increasing UK capability for defence. She and the ceramics industry may consider responding to a consultation launched by the Ministry of Defence on 23 October on its offset regime, which has the potential to ensure that we get greater investment in industries such as ceramics in our defence supply chains. The Government, particularly through UK Research and Innovation, work with and support such stakeholders to accelerate that kind of research and propel decarbonisation.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Amanda Hack) that it is important that we share innovation across multiple sectors. I am thinking particularly of the Foundation Industries Sustainability Consortium, for instance, which shows that there is great opportunity for furnace technology and so on to be shared across the foundation industries.

I very much echo the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee) that north Staffordshire is well placed to attract further investment and to continue to go from strength to strength and become the UK centre for ceramics. In response to the specific request about attending a roundtable, I would be very happy to do that and to have further discussions with the industry. I believe I have a couple of engagements with the ceramics industry already in my diary in the period after Christmas, and I would be happy to attend a roundtable, either separately or as part of one of those events.

Critical Minerals Strategy

Debate between Chris McDonald and Allison Gardner

Monday 24th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris McDonald]

My hon. Friend correctly points out the essential role of ceramic refractories in the production of any high temperature processes, including critical minerals. I would be very happy to meet him later this evening to discuss both issues further.

[Dr Allison Gardner (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

Advanced ceramics companies such as Mantec in my constituency produce ceramic membrane filters that are capable of extracting critical minerals including from industrial waste, improving productivity and recycling, reducing environmental pollution and of course reducing costs. Can the Minister tell me how UK businesses in the critical minerals supply chain, including innovators like Mantec, can benefit from the strategy through our strong public finance offers, including the National Wealth Fund and UK Export Finance?

[Chris McDonald]

Businesses with the kinds of technologies my hon. Friend mentions—separation technologies—can, as she said, access funding via the British Business Bank and the National Wealth Fund, and also the additional £50 million that we have made available. If it is a very early stage technology, I would encourage the business to have discussions with one of the Catapult centres or local universities and to consider an Innovate UK grant.

Specialist Manufacturing Sector: Regional Economies

Debate between Chris McDonald and Allison Gardner

Wednesday 19th November 2025 Westminster Hall

[Chris McDonald]

The hon. Gentleman is right that UK Export Finance’s plan is to encourage an additional 1,000 businesses, but that is not the limit of our ambition with regard to SME exporting. It is important that we increase not only the number of SMEs that are exporting but, as I said earlier, the competitiveness of SMEs, so that they can increase the percentage of their exports. The work we are doing on UK procurement will also help with that by giving a baseload of orders to UK businesses that will then increase their competitiveness and enable them to win more export orders.

[Dr Gardner]

In 1882, a ceramics company in my constituency exported 50% of its products to Europe and globally. Since Brexit its ability to export to Europe has dramatically reduced. It can export to the US in two days, but it can take months to get its exports to Italy. What can the Minister do to help us improve our trade to Europe?

[Chris McDonald]

This comes back exactly to my point about regulation. Through our work with the EU, we are endeavouring to ensure that we have maximum access to the market. Where regulatory burdens are restricting export activity, I am keen to hear about them. I encourage businesses to come forward and support the questionnaire we have released on business regulation.

The industrial strategy places an emphasis on growth and frontier industries, but it also gives a clear focus to city regions and clusters with the highest potential to support our growth sectors. It is important to us that we grow the manufacturing sector across the country and also businesses, small and large, in supply chains, as well as well-known household names. I reaffirm that the Government have an ongoing commitment to UK manufacturing. We can too easily think about manufacturing as being about household names and consumer products, but we have heard a lot today about manufacturing businesses in the supply chain that employ many more people and make a significant economic contribution, over and above the consumer products we can buy.

As I know myself, manufacturing is about local businesses that have an impact locally on communities and prosperity, as well as on the growth of the country. The Government have a high ambition for our manufacturing industry. By 2035, we want to be the best place in the world to start, grow and invest in advanced manufacturing. We want to double the annual business investment entering the UK manufacturing sector from £21 billion a year to nearly £40 billion a year. That requires bold action, and in many of the measures I have set out we are looking to do more. The steps we have taken in setting out the industrial strategy and various sector plans this year, and the reforms we are making to skills, finance, innovation and regulation, will have a positive and lasting impact, not only for valve manufacturers in Calder Valley but for other specialist manufacturers around the UK.