Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Brereton Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am sorry—time is against us. I call Jack Brereton.

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

12. What steps he is taking to increase levels of investment in research and development.

[The Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

Research and development plays a vital role in improving productivity and helping us to expand our global opportunities. The Government are investing an additional £7 billion in R&D funding by 2022—this is the biggest increase in public funding. Our ambition is also to increase total R&D spend to 2.4% of our GDP by 2027, and 3% in the long term.

[Jack Brereton]

I thank the Minister for his response. Does he agree that the development of an advanced ceramics research park in Stoke-on-Trent would be a significant addition to the UK’s R&D capabilities?

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I understand that my colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Richard Harrington), is meeting with him and leaders from the ceramics sector on 24 October regarding its proposal for future investment. I wish them all the best.

Nuclear Sector Deal

Jack Brereton Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this important debate and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison) on securing it. She made many excellent points in welcoming the deal, and I agree that Ministers and industry have taken some positive and necessary steps forward to secure sector jobs and skills, and for our national prosperity.

This is the fifth sector deal under the modern industrial strategy and I hope it will not be the last; as the Minister knows, as an MP representing the potteries I am extremely keen to see a successful sector deal for ceramics. I want to highlight the transferability of skills, knowledge and technology from across the advanced manufacturing industry, which are germane to a civil nuclear sector deal.

I also want to talk about transferability and advances in the military-use nuclear sector, especially those achieved by Goodwin International in my constituency. That firm assures me that many of its skills and technology are transferable to civil-use power generation, with much to offer if the investment environment is right and if the appropriate guarantees are in place on the development of small modular reactors—SMRs.

I am encouraged by the £44 million SMR framework, which, the deal promises on page 22, will offer “greater flexibility” in the generic design assessment process. It confirms that the SMR expert finance working group will report to Ministers very soon. We can, and indeed must, be well placed to develop first-of-a-kind small reactor projects. SMRs represent an exciting new technology that opens up more of the industry to partial manufacturing in off-site supply chains. This factory-build production line approach has the potential to reduce significantly the costs of nuclear energy generation, creating economies of scale and making nuclear a much more viable solution to our future energy demands.

It is welcome that the Government intend to pursue the development of credible commercial propositions and the viability of private investment vehicles for clean energy infrastructure projects using advanced nuclear technologies. However, wherever possible and appropriate, any up-front Government guarantees on taking the energy produced by SMR technology would be extremely helpful to de-risk, and thereby leverage, the investment the Government seek from private funds and commercial companies such as Goodwin International. If we have the domestic confidence to develop SMRs, that will lead to wider confidence in the technology, leading to opportunities for the UK to benefit from exports of SMRs to other countries.

The Government are well aware of the crossover potential from military-use nuclear technology. On page 36, the deal talks of “our new Dreadnought submarines” and the fantastic workers at Barrow who are responsible for their assembly. I would not want it to be overlooked that those submarines rely on critical supply chains across the country. Goodwin International is expert in producing the high-end nuclear-grade steel components required. The engines are developed and produced by equally fantastic workers in Stoke-on-Trent. On page 27, in a section dedicated to sector transferability, there is explicit mention of transferable

“bespoke programmes that support the transitioning and transfer of capability between civil and defence” .

I await with great interest further details on the pilot scheme on transferable skills between oil and gas, the armed forces and manufacturing, especially as that will be aligned to “regional skills priorities.”

The city of Stoke-on-Trent and our country would benefit greatly from the envisaged career champions and work experience placements, alongside the T-levels programme and apprenticeships of the engineering and manufacturing route. Engaging young people in education and training, so that they get the transferable skills they will need for careers in advanced manufacturing and world-class engineering, is a regional skills priority for us, as is export capability. I welcome the involvement of the Department for International Trade and the export ambition of £2 billion of contracts by 2030. If anything, I hope that target proves to be rather low.

This sector deal is welcome, and so is the fact that it is not an edict from above and that, although it has concrete measures, it is not cast in stone. There is a great opportunity now for the sector and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to keep reaching out and to get the details right, while maintaining certain flexibility in an era of uncertain, rapid technological change. I look forward to engaging with the Government to realise the benefits for my constituents of the frameworks, pilot projects and partnership building that will advance the deal further as lessons are learned.

Industrial Strategy

Jack Brereton Excerpts

Wednesday 18th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this debate. This is an exciting time for British business, particularly the UK ceramics, advanced manufacturing, digital and logistics industries that do so much to create jobs and prosperity in Stoke-on-Trent.

I am delighted to have visited several businesses in the city over the Easter recess: Don-Bur, which makes some of the most technologically advanced trailers for lorries; Michelin, which is leading the way with retreads for tyres; and Midway Manufacturing, which specialises in bespoke electronics and, I am pleased to say, has expanded and just relocated to Longton in my constituency. Stoke-on-Trent is on the up, and it is businesses like those that are driving the resurgence of our great city—as, indeed, they are driving economic growth throughout the country, underpinned by the internationally competitive tax and regulation framework delivered by this Government.

Stoke-on-Trent is increasingly seen as an attractive place for businesses to locate and invest. From my recent Adjournment debate, the Minister will know about my personal ambition to see Stoke-on-Trent’s ceramics economy grow to an annual £1 billion in gross value added. Now is the time for the Government to help to underpin and realise that growth by building a sector deal for the ceramics industry into our modern industrial strategy. I am committed to the creation of a national research centre—indeed, a dedicated international institute for ceramics—in the authentic world capital of ceramics, Stoke-on-Trent.

Increasingly, advanced and technical ceramics are being used throughout the global economy. We all know about tiles, crockery and household ornaments, but ceramics are also used in thermal barrier ceramic coatings for jet engines, in ceramic armour, and even on the space shuttle. They are used in semiconductors for electronics and in healthcare and many other industries. Our industrial strategy must ensure that it is global Britain that harnesses the power of the 21st century advanced ceramics manufacturing industry. A British, authentically place-based research centre for ceramics, focused on Stoke-on-Trent, will be a magnet for exceptional research, design and talent.

A sector deal for ceramics can realise the potential for enhanced skills, education, apprenticeships and training. This will keep UK ceramics internationally competitive as a world leader in products and technology and a driver of British exports. Although the world of ceramics defines Stoke-on-Trent—we are the Potteries after all—we have a wide range of vibrant industries to encourage and support. Our local economy is more diverse than ever before. As I said at the beginning of my speech, logistics and bespoke electronics are part of our economy, as are industries ranging from retail to advanced technical engineering through to bespoke digital security. I totally agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison) said about the potential of modular nuclear reactors. I hope that they can be at least partly manufactured at Goodwin International in Stoke South.

The industrial strategy needs to have an eye on the skills needed for these industries to emerge, grow and flourish—not just academic or technical qualifications, but personal skills such as innovation, enterprise, flexibility, and resilience. This is all about making our communities, our city and our country more productive and more prosperous and ensuring that everybody is able to access these opportunities to live up to their full potential.

Domestic Gas and Electricity (Tariff Cap) Bill

Jack Brereton Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 6th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

As a number of Members have said, the issue of domestic gas and electricity supply is particularly pertinent following the recent extreme weather. The cost of that supply is always hugely important to our constituents, not least because when the mercury drops and blizzards swirl, it an absolutely necessary and unavoidable cost.

Like all other Members, I receive letters and surgery visits from people who struggle with their bills, struggle to understand the tariff choices available, or struggle with access to the internet and the comparison websites that might help them to reduce their domestic fuel bills. I recently hosted an energy-switching surgery with our local citizens advice bureau to help more people to switch to the best deal.

According to the latest figures available, the Office for National Statistics considered 12.3% of households in my constituency to be fuel-poor in 2015. Thankfully, that was a great deal less than the 23.3% of households who were fuel-poor in my constituency back in 2010, but there is clearly still more work to do. Similarly, while the Office for National Statistics reveals that the percentage of households in Great Britain with internet access has increased dramatically over the last decade—from 60% to 90%—there are still in Stoke-on-Trent, according to the city council’s digital inclusion strategy, about 15,000 households without internet connection and 7,000 without a mobile phone. That matters, because one of the driving forces behind the need for the temporary tariff cap under the Bill is the reluctance of consumers to switch, or the inability to do so with ease and convenience. The Bill matters to Stoke-on-Trent’s digital inclusion strategy because a temporary cap would give us the breathing space that we need to take the measures planned locally that will get the market for energy functioning more freely online than at present.

Great efforts have been made to ensure the domination of the market by Blair and Brown’s big six does not mean that new entrants are perpetually crowded out. They demonstrated what Labour does in power: it quashes competition. It now wants to go further, as we have heard from the Leader of the Opposition, by nationalising the energy market at huge expense to taxpayers, eliminating all consumer choice that would allow people to shop around and get the best price. It is greatly to the credit of this Government and their coalition predecessors that the number of suppliers has increased from just 13 in 2010 to 60 now, and that the dual fuel market share of independent suppliers now runs at 22%.

The nudges towards greater competition are not working for everyone, however. The £1.5 billion premium—the difference between what people would be paying in a fully functioning market and what they actually pay—identified by the Competition and Markets Authority in 2016 is a shocking figure. Just as we are taking measures locally to improve consumer engagement in a competitive market—not least with my own free energy guide for constituents, which I recently published—it is right that the Government continue to roll out measures to increase competition in the breathing space that a temporary tariff cap can and will bring.

As a consumer, the rigmarole of changing an energy supplier involves psychological barriers that everyday retail markets—like going to the shops—do not share. The sclerotic consumer side of the energy market also effects psychological disinhibition on the producer side, by which I mean that energy suppliers feel able, and indeed entitled, to take their customers for granted in a way that suppliers in fully functioning free markets do not. As Octopus Energy puts it in its briefing for this debate, in a healthy market, consumers who shop around for the best deals keep prices low for everyone.

I would go further than Octopus Energy: in healthy markets, consumers who are loyal are rewarded, not ripped off. In the very healthy market of coffee houses, for example, suppliers might well attract new customers with flyers or vouchers, but they also tend to take care to reward loyalty over caprice. That point is well illustrated by the fact that even the House of Commons has a loyalty card for tea and coffee. Huge energy corporations with loyal customers have no excuse for treating loyalty with contempt.

My tests for this Bill are that it should motivate more consumers to be confident switchers, that it will require suppliers to provide the customer care that loyal consumers would expect in a fully functioning market, and that it will spur the regulator into action as the consumers’ champion. I am confident that it will.

I will be glad to receive assurances that the long-term ambition for energy policy is not just a reliance on short-term caps. The long-term interests of consumers are best served by the freest possible markets with the greatest possible competition. Looking to the future, there is great potential for new energy sources and new firms in the market. In the renewables sector, costs are coming down. In the nuclear sector, innovative new technology promises unthought-of energy security if we get the policy framework right, taking pressure off the gas network as our primary source of energy. An energy tariff cap cannot become a comfort blanket against embracing sectoral change in the decades to come, even if a temporary cap is a necessary safety net in the immediate months ahead.

In conclusion, the market for household fuels does not function as well as we would hope. It needs to become more competitive, more consumer-focused, and easier to enter for new firms on the block. The Bill will provide temporary respite from the more egregious excesses of the big energy firms that fail to reward loyal customers. It opens a clear window of opportunity for further action in boosting market information, digital access, competition and security of supply. I support the Bill in principle and as part of a wider approach to fixing the problems in our wider energy market.

UK Research Centre for Ceramics

Jack Brereton Excerpts

Wednesday 21st February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

I am grateful to have secured this debate. This is an exciting time for the manufacturing industry, and particularly so for ceramics. In raising a debate on the Adjournment, I follow in the footsteps of Ida Copeland, my illustrious Conservative predecessor as a Member for Stoke-on-Trent, who in the 1930s handed a trayful of ceramic ware around the Chamber and invited Members to guess which pieces were made authentically in Stoke-on-Trent and which were imported knock-offs.

I am sorry to say that I do not have a tray of chinaware for Members to inspect tonight, but that is because the goods I want to talk about have yet to be researched, designed, realised and put into production. It is also worth saying that not enough of the ceramics in our public buildings these days are actually made in Stoke-on-Trent.

It is true that British makers, our manufacturers, are leading the way in realising the new economic opportunities open to global Britain, with output and exports both on the rise. The Library informs me that the UK ceramics industry—in which I include the manufacture of refractory products and bricks, tiles and construction products in baked clay—contributed £824 million to our national economic output in 2016, up from £566 million in 2009. In real terms, the industry’s economic contribution has increased by 44% since 2009.

Meanwhile, according to the British Ceramics Confederation, the global market for ceramics totals more than $150 billion per annum. UK-based ceramics manufacturers’ exports have grown by 6% since 2011, to about £410 million in 2016. However, the BCC calculates that if the UK ceramics manufacturing sector is to maintain its share of the global market in the coming years, the industry’s sales must grow by 9% a year. Let me be clear: that is 9% growth just to stand still.

The sector’s ambition goes much further than just treading water in the international pool. It is confident that if we embrace the opportunities presented by the advance in technical ceramics, annual growth of 15% is possible, with an annual £1.5 billion of gross value added from ceramics possible by the mid-2020s. My ambition is to see £1 billion annual GVA from ceramics in Stoke-on-Trent alone.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his reference to the excellent work that the BCC does. In that same vein, will he put it on record this evening that, when we leave the EU, he will be supporting the efforts that Labour Members will be making when the Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill comes back to this House to support the amendments coming from the BCC to protect those manufacturing bases from, as he says, cheap, knock-off imports?

[Jack Brereton]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point. I agree that there is a need to ensure that our industries are protected, and the Trade Bill and the customs Bill, which he cited, provide an opportunity to do that. I would like to see a continuation of measures that we have seen in the EU—a continuation of those trade remedies that would ensure that the ceramics industry continued to receive those protections.

I wish to set out two key arguments. The first is that a UK research centre for ceramics is a vital addition to global Britain. The second is that, obviously, such a research centre should reside in the global home of ceramics, Stoke-on-Trent. Why do we need a research centre? For thousands of years, ceramics have been valued for their unique properties of durability, strength and resistance to corrosion. Thanks to hundreds of years of technological advances in ceramics manufacture, we now, regrettably, take for granted the affordability and ubiquity of ceramic products.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I asked the hon. Gentleman beforehand whether he would agree to my intervention. Does he agree that there is a need to keep alive the skills and the lessons he referred to, which have been handed down through generations, so as to ensure that those with an interest and desire to learn this beautiful, wonderful ability can access the tools and know-how to do so? Does he further agree that although it is wonderful to have the worldwide web at our fingertips and all the information it holds, there is something to be said for having the clay in your hands and the skills to mould it?

[Jack Brereton]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point and I totally agree that it is incredibly important that those skills come through. I have spoken to people from a number of businesses in my constituency, and they need more of those skills coming through, because we have the jobs and opportunities needed to absorb them. It is incredibly important, therefore, that we continue to see those skills coming through, and this research unit is about part of that.

We are all familiar with household ceramic goods, both functional and ornamental, but the ceramics sector is much wider than just the market for household goods. Increasingly, advanced and technical ceramics are being used across the global economy: thermal barrier ceramic coating is used in jet engines; ceramic armour is used in the defence industry; ceramics are used in semiconductors needed in electronics; bio-ceramics are making important advances for the medical sector, in operations and, in particular, prosthetics; solid oxide fuel cells are radically benefiting the energy market; and in the world of digitalisation and virtual reality, the concrete reality of ceramics still reigns, including in digital printing materials. We need to make sure that global Britain leads this industry—that it is our nation and Stoke-on-Trent that harness the power of the 21st century ceramics revolution. Global Britain should not be saddled with a £900 million annual trade deficit in ceramics, given that the products we make are the best in the world.

A UK research centre for ceramics would be a magnet for research, skills and design talent. It would support and expedite the journey from inspiration and early-stage research, right through to fully commercialised products and processes. It would be the go-to place for firms seeking to source and exploit the latest ceramic technologies.

Currently, the UK lacks the R&D infrastructure for seamlessly researching and exploiting the range of novel sintering technologies. That cannot go on. Sintering is the process of using heat or pressure to compact materials such as clay without the risk of liquefaction, which would destroy the material completely. It is a process that has long required a high level of expertise. Now, with advanced sintering—flash sintering—revolutionising the industry’s ability to transform the properties of input materials, and using significantly less energy across the process, we stand at the threshold of a new era of high productivity and exceptionally fine goods.

To be globally competitive, we need to provide the environment to facilitate that process, not least in respect of Stoke-on-Trent’s Lucideon, the development and commercialisation organisation that specialises in materials technologies and processes and is leading the sintering revolution. This is not about picking winners; it is about unlocking the doors for winners to walk through.

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. As chair of the all-party group on ceramics, I think there is no more important issue to discuss in the House than the future of the sector—

[Ruth Smeeth]

Well, they are wrong!

What are the hon. Gentleman’s views on celebrating the work that is already being done by the Ceramic Innovation Network, which is leading in this area? It is led by Lucideon, which is based in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), and is supported by organisations such as Steelite, Churchill and Dudson—I have to get my local companies on the record—which secure more than 20,000 jobs in our great city.

[Jack Brereton]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. As she says, the work that the industry is doing to ensure that the skills, technologies and advances we are seeing come through is critical. We need to continue that work and to do more to ensure that the whole industry is realising this technology revolution.

A UK research centre for ceramics would house an advanced ceramics campus, which would in turn house a national advanced sintering centre to bring together world-leading higher education institutions and industry, to create a hub for UK sintering R&D. That would deliver the step change that we need in the UK’s research capacity for pioneering advanced ceramics.

A ceramics campus could also encapsulate the recently formed AMRICC—the Applied Materials Research, Innovation & Commercialisation Company—which envisages pilot lines in field-enhanced sintering, ceramic construction materials, combined process and product-batch trials, and mainstream ceramics sector processing techniques. The pilot lines are designed to boost productivity, commercialise research, encourage disruptive technologies and, at the same time, support decarbonisation through waste-heat capture and the electrification of the industry’s considerable heat production.

A ceramics campus could be the new home for Lucideon, which is looking to expand considerably, aiming to nearly double its workforce. Together, the companies advocate the further development of specialist equipment and technicians for the benefit of the wider industry.

The ceramics campus would not be alone at the UK research centre for ceramics. It is envisaged that there would also be an international ceramics centre on the site—a hub for design, fine art and crafts, and for ceramics that would draw in designers, artists, architects and materials scientists from all over the world for expert training in the ceramics field. The ideas generated could be expected to provide some of the most eye-catching public art in history, making the research centre come alive for a much wider audience than just ceramics professionals. It would be an asset in the UK’s business tourism offer and would complement the city’s already blossoming tourism industry.

If the industry is to continue its current export success, it needs to be ready for the opportunities that will come from leaving the European Union and championing British products around the world. For this, a research centre could house an in-house ceramics sector expert in international trade. In addition, a facility for skills development, education, apprenticeships and training could keep UK ceramics internationally competitive and in high demand as the world-leader in products and technology. It is anticipated that as many as 600 people would find employment on the advanced ceramics campus directly, with several thousand jobs created in ceramics start-ups and spin-outs, and through the expansion of existing enterprises throughout the wider industry.

So why Stoke-on-Trent? It is the only natural home for a UK research centre for ceramics—it is the home of world ceramics and globally renowned potteries. Indeed, the plans and calculations for a research centre for ceramics are predicated on that centre being based on regenerated brownfield land in the city. The site would become a ceramics park, and would coincide with other developments that are coming to make Stoke-on-Trent a city that is truly on the up: development investment and civic renewal; a cultural renaissance including the British ceramics biennial; the BBC’s “Great Pottery Throw Down”; and our oh-so-nearly successful bid to be UK City of Culture in 2021. Historic England has announced a heritage action zone in my constituency to enhance our local industrial heritage and give it a commercial future, particularly through gains from the visitor economy. Massive transport investment is planned, including HS2, roads, wider rail and the rebirth of our city’s historic canal network.

No other city is better placed for access to the major cities of both the northern powerhouse and the midlands engine, not to mention international markets, with four international airports within an hour’s drive of the city. Both the BCC and Lucideon are already based in Stoke-on-Trent and, despite the truly shocking roll call of major names lost under the Blair and Brown years, the Potteries are still home to a huge number of world-leading brands in the industry, such as Steelite, Portmeirion, Burleigh, Wade, Dudson, Duchess, Churchill, Dunoon, Ibstock, Johnson Tiles, Emma Bridgewater and Wedgwood. Those are aside from the array of smaller-scale producers across the city tapping into and enhancing our identity as the place to be for ceramic artists and craftspeople.

The industry is also a massive draw to the city, with a burgeoning tourism sector focused around ceramics from the iconic Gladstone Victorian Pottery Museum to the award-winning World of Wedgwood, which I am pleased to inform the House has recently won the VisitEngland gold accolade. Stoke-on-Trent is home to the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, housing the world’s largest collection of British ceramics.

Staffordshire University has a strong legacy with the institutions from which it was formed; the colleges of art, which came from across the Potteries, trained the likes of Clarice Cliff and Susie Cooper. The university has been awarded £200,000 to support growth and innovation in the ceramics industry from the Higher Education Funding Council for England catalyst fund. Partners include the BCC, AMRICC, Lucideon and Wade Ceramics. Although that goes a significant way, and there is much that our city can give, there is still much that our city needs in support. Our record on social mobility is not good enough, our educational outcomes lag behind, we are not yet matching the productivity rates of our competitors, and, despite recent herculean efforts to improve, we still do not have enough of the high-skill, high-value jobs that a world manufacturing centre should enjoy.

Historically, the ceramics industry has provided women with opportunities that other industries have failed to provide. Today, the name of Emma Bridgewater is well known, and so too are the names of artists such as Anita Harris, Emma Bailey, Susan Rose and Denise O’Sullivan. Over the past century, there were many more famous woman potters, including Charlotte Rhead, Clarice Cliff, Edith Gater, Susie Cooper and more. We need to encourage more great names of the future. I am grateful to the Crafts Council for highlighting the fact that the numbers of students taking ceramics bachelor degree courses, and design and technology GCSEs, have reduced significantly in recent times. By enhancing and signposting the clear high-value career paths of the ceramics industry, it is hoped that a future ceramics park will encourage a much greater take-up of courses and get more of the skills that people need back into this growing sector.

As well as opening up careers for all in manufacturing and art and design, the ceramics industry offers career paths in everything from marketing to accountancy, and from information technology to customer services. It is, as the Ceramic Skills Academy says, an industry full of opportunity, and this fits very well with the industrial strategy.

I am particularly delighted to let the Minister know that the ambition for the UK’s research centre for ceramics, based in Stoke-on-Trent, has been tested against all 10 pillars of the Government’s modern industrial strategy. It will manifestly invest in science, develop skills and provide training opportunities. In terms of upgrading infrastructure, the ceramics park will convert a brownfield site into a thriving, publicly accessible research park. Businesses will be supported to grow and start up, ensuring that research and development is commercialised to the advantage of the UK firms on and off site. A research centre will help the industry to ensure that public sector procurement processes recognise the excellent benefits from UK-manufactured ceramics products. The ceramics park, equipped with an international trade expert, will encourage trade and inward investment. Through heat capture and other technologies, the park can deliver affordable energy and clean growth. It will be directly connected to the new district heating network.

The ceramics park will cultivate the UK’s ceramics sector and help to restore it to the health that it has previously enjoyed in some of the sub-sectors that have suffered acute decline. By strengthening the industrial cluster of ceramics in and around the Potteries, the ceramics park will be hugely beneficial in rebalancing our country’s economic geography. Finally, the ceramics park will bring together in one place the institutions and sectoral innovators that the UK’s ceramics sector needs to face the future as a dynamic contributor to a global Britain.

My appeal to the Minister is that he helps us to deliver this ambitious and exciting vision. In the short term, support is needed to develop and fully specify the proposals for the ceramics park in line with the process for similar centres of excellence supported by the Government. There will be a need for limited funding from Whitehall to support such things as infrastructure, but that will in turn leverage much greater investment locally and nationally from businesses, public bodies and academic institutions.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) has previously corresponded with the Department about the early stages of this vision. I was delighted that a ministerial response in November last year spoke of “active consideration” and “an initial response”, assuring us that

“it is pleasing to see the Ceramic Sector being so positive about the future opportunities.”

I would be grateful for an update on the Department’s welcome input and its intent.

I want Stoke-on-Trent to be a city for ideas, ambition and achievement. I want Stoke-on-Trent to enjoy a £1 billion a year ceramics economy, and for our visitor economy to be boosted with ceramics-related and ceramics-inspired tourism. It is a UK research centre for ceramics, based in Stoke-on-Trent, that can make my dream come true. It can unlock our true potential for innovation and success, giving us a competitive edge internationally. I look forward to the Minister’s support tonight.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Brereton Excerpts

Tuesday 12th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the importance of ensuring that the agreement we reach will be free not only of tariffs but of the types of frictions he describes. It is important for our successful industry, and not just the automotive sector, that that is the deal we conclude. I hope he will welcome the progress that was made towards that deal last week.

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

9. What steps he is taking to develop sector deals as part of the Government’s industrial strategy.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Greg Clark)]

The industrial strategy White Paper highlighted the emphatic support for sector deals, encouraging any sector to come forward with proposals on how, working in partnership with the Government, that sector can grow and increase its investment, productivity and earning power. A number of sectors have signalled their interest in developing a sector deal, including, as my hon. Friend knows, the ceramics sector.

[Jack Brereton]

I thank the Secretary of State for that response. Will he please update the House on the progress that has been made in developing a sector deal for ceramics?

[Greg Clark]

Very good progress is being made with the leaders of the ceramics sector, of which there is a significant cluster in north Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent, where Dr Laura Cohen leads the sector. In the months ahead, we hope and expect to be able to conclude a deal with the sector that will capitalise on the enormous opportunity, especially given the new uses of ceramics in, for example, the medical sector.