Manufacturing Post Brexit

Lord Bassam of Brighton Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, quick questions and quick answers will mean that both noble Lords will be able to get in.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I completely agree with my noble friend. There is a great future ahead for small modular reactors. We want to support Rolls-Royce as much as we can in this area. We are rolling out support for Great British Nuclear and the SMR programme.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as director of Business in the Community, the UK’s biggest responsible business network. The fall in manufacturing in the UK since the 1970s has been quicker than almost any other developed country, despite jobs in the sector paying 12% more than equivalent sectors and being seen as key to growth and bringing pride back to Britain. As the noble Lord from the Lib Dem Benches pointed out, it is reported today that UK car production is at its lowest level since 1956. It seems to us that the Government have accepted the decline, so what plans do they have seriously to arrest it? We have not heard enough from the Minister today and we do not hear enough from the Government on this point. We want manufacturing to recover. “Made in Britain” should be a slogan we should all be proud of.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I certainly agree with the noble Lord’s last statement, if not many of his earlier ones. There is always more that we can do. We continue to support UK manufacturing, but the UK is one of the largest manufacturing nations in the world—it is the ninth globally by output. Manufacturing contributed £205 billion of gross value added to the UK economy and supports 2.5 million jobs, most of them outside London, which is a good thing. Of course we always need to look at new policies and regulations. I am sure the Opposition will support our new regulatory freedom to help make things easier for the manufacturing industry, but let us get behind British manufacturing and not be so gloomy.