Specialist Manufacturing Sector: Regional Economies Debate
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David Williams
Main Page: David Williams (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent North)Department Debates - View all David Williams's debates with the Department for Business and Trade
Specialist Manufacturing Sector: Regional Economies
David Williams Excerpts(1 day, 6 hours ago)
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David Williams (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Josh Fenton-Glynn) on securing this important debate.
In discussing the contribution of specialist manufacturing to regional economies, there is no better example than the city that I am so proud to represent. Indeed, we have a bit of a pincer movement going on today, because all the MPs from Stoke-on-Trent are in Westminster Hall today. That speaks to the importance of our ceramics industry, whether it is traditional or advanced. That industry is personal to me, because my mum and my grandad worked in it; they would rightly expect me to be here for the debate.
As we know, Stoke-on-Trent was moulded by ceramics, and ceramics remains one of the UK’s most distinctive specialist manufacturing clusters. It is an industry built on technical skill, precision and an understanding of materials that has been passed down from family to family for hundreds of years.
When Moorcroft closed its doors earlier this year, I met its incredible workers who, between them, had over 800 years of experience in the ceramics sector. That is not some abstract figure but lived experience of firing temperatures, glaze chemistry—dipping, as we call it—moulding techniques and quality control. Those skills cannot simply be recreated once they are lost. I am delighted that Moorcroft now has a new lease of life. It has reopened under the stewardship of Will Moorcroft, the grandson of the company’s founder, which is great news for the city.
The reality of specialist manufacturing is that it is place-based. We have heard about the importance of identity. It crosses generations, and it has an economic and cultural value that goes far beyond any set of accounts. Across Stoke-on-Trent, ceramics companies continue to innovate. They support supply chains that reach into retail, hospitality, construction and advanced industries. They offer skilled employment and apprenticeships for our local people, anchoring our local economy, yet, as we know, the sector faces some real difficulties at the moment: rising energy costs, international competition from countries that do not have the same regulatory or cost environments, and an older workforce that needs a pipeline of new talent. If the Government are serious about backing specialist manufacturing, clusters such as ceramics must be treated as a strategic national asset that is worthy of receiving targeted support on energy, skills, exports and fair competition.
We all know that Stoke-on-Trent stands ready to play its full part in the UK’s industrial future, but we cannot afford to lose our skills and our manufacturers, which the generations before us built up. I hope that the Minister will set out clearly today how the Government plan to protect and grow specialist manufacturing sectors such as our ceramics sector, which remain essential to regional economies and to the country as a whole.