Britain’s Industrial Future

Paul Bristow Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con)]

It gives me great pleasure to speak in this debate on Britain’s industrial future. It gives me great pride once again to talk about my city of Peterborough, a city whose tradition of manufacturing, engineering and all sorts of other industries makes it crucial to Britain’s industrial future. I also want to pay tribute to the Minister, who is not in his place on the Front Bench at the moment—the Minister of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman). The Minister did, quite rightly, refer to how Britain is the ninth biggest manufacturing economy in the world, something that is all too often forgotten about in this country. We constantly hear messages that we do not manufacture and do not make anything any more as a country. Well, that is evidently not true if we are the ninth biggest manufacturing economy in the world.

I would like to return to a theme I have raised in this House before, because the truth is that in Britain we have too many jobs that are low-skilled, have too low productivity and are too low-paid, and we need to replace those jobs with highly productive jobs, highly skilled jobs and, of course, highly paid jobs. The truth is that this country for too long has been addicted to what I would call cheap migrant labour, and so many people in cities such as Peterborough—

[Peter Grant]

Oh, come on!

[Paul Bristow]

It is absolutely true. If productivity and wages were somehow linked to migration, Britain would have been one of the richest countries in the world over the last 25 years. It simply does not work. We have been addicted to cheap migrant labour, and far too many people in cities such as Peterborough—far too many young people when they leave education—are referred to as a failure if they do not go to university or do not excel in academic subjects. What we need to be doing is valuing those children who excel in manufacturing and in practical and technical skills. That is exactly why we are building a university in Peterborough—a university that focuses on engineering, on manufacturing and on technical qualifications. That is really important, because that will attract other companies to come to our city, invest in the skills that we have in Peterborough, invest in those new people and ensure that we create those highly paid, highly productive jobs in the future.

There are just a couple of things I want to say about how, other than in Peterborough, we can transfer to that high-skill, high-productivity and high-wage economy. The first is that we have to invest seriously in R&D in this country. We have to continue to commit to that, and encourage private sector organisations to invest in research and development, backed by Government incentives on tax and regulation. That is absolutely crucial. No longer can we rely, as I said earlier, on cheap labour to drive economic growth, because it simply does not work.

The second thing we need to be doing is investing in skills, and I am really delighted to see our committing ourselves to lifelong learning. For places such as Peterborough, lifelong learning is absolutely crucial, and I hope we can do more and that we can invest in the talented people we have in cities such as Peterborough and across the country.

Thirdly—and I say this knowing that it will not always make me as popular with Members on the Conservative Benches as it will with those on the Opposition Benches—I went to Lancaster week to speak to my old university Conservative association, and what fun I had too. I was led to believe that all young people were socialists; well, that certainly was not the case at Lancaster. What they told me was that the one thing they felt could unlock their potential and their future is a relaxation on planning. We really have to focus on and invest in building the houses and the industrial units of the future. We need to create an environment where we can free up, not logjam, our planning system when it comes to industrial units, business and other areas, as well as homes for the future. No longer can we have a situation where new homes and new industrial developments are blocked for nimbyish reasons. That is not the way to long-term economic growth, and it certainly will not give a step up to young people in my constituency and elsewhere. Frankly, I do not think Labour Members get or understand this; they are still locked in a mentality of continuing with a low growth, cheap labour type economy and— [Interruption.] Their party believes in open borders and wants to import people into this country to do low productivity, low skill jobs. If we had continued with a system like that, Britain’s economy would have grown faster than that of any other country in the last 10 years. If we follow that advice, we will continue down the same route.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Reducing Costs for Businesses

Paul Bristow Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con)]

I am pleased to speak in this debate, because it gives me the opportunity to thank the businesses in my constituency in Peterborough for showing such patience and resilience and also for employing record numbers of people in my city. It also gives me the opportunity to thank the Government for the support they have given to businesses in Peterborough, because it undoubtedly has been tough.

I understand that businesses have had to face challenges, but when Opposition Members claim they are the party of business, I would say that they are the party of doom and gloom. I do not see that doom and gloom. Rather, I see 2022 as the year that the Peterborough economy cranks back up and we have record growth in our city, because ambition for businesses in Peterborough is high. Pre pandemic, Peterborough was among the top 15 cities with the highest number of business start-ups in the UK and the 13th best out of 100 cities in which to start a business. This is post pandemic, and the previous stat was pre pandemic. We also have our university coming, which will specialise in manufacturing, engineering and technology, and we are going to make the decisions that will guarantee our future health, wealth and happiness in those STEM industries.

That is what this party and this Government are delivering—£75 million to help us through the pandemic in my constituency, with £1.2 million just before Christmas, and a brand-new university that will open in the centre of our city, and that is not to mention the huge of vote of confidence that Peterborough’s economy has been given through £59 million-worth of Government investment in city centre regeneration and our university. Peterborough’s time is now, so I urge Opposition Members to forget the doom and gloom. Forget the opportunism; let us get behind British business and be positive and optimistic for our future in 2022.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Bristow Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The hon. Gentleman will understand that the licences under which Cambo was permitted were actually granted when his own party was in government. He will also appreciate that I have always said that there will be a transition. He and his Labour associates want to shut down the industry and cause mass unemployment among the 250,000 people in this country who work in the sector.

[Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con)]

12. What steps his Department is taking to increase nuclear power generation.

[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

16. What steps he is taking to deliver new nuclear power generation.

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Greg Hands)]

This Government are doubling down on our plan to deploy more home-grown, affordable clean energy in this country, and we are putting new nuclear at the heart of that plan. In the past four weeks alone, we have announced £1.7 billion allocated for a new large-scale nuclear power station, a new nuclear Bill to boost private capital and cut build costs, £210 million to back Rolls-Royce’s small modular reactor plan, and £120 million for future nuclear projects—new nuclear made and manufactured here in Britain.

[Paul Bristow]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s commitment to increasing the generation of renewable energy in the UK and attracting investment in our renewable energy sector, especially the nuclear energy industry. The green industrial revolution is well under way in Peterborough. Will he join me in congratulating Peter Brotherhood, a manufacturer of 150 years standing, whose modular steam turbine offering, manufactured in the heart of my city of Peterborough, can promote further innovation in the nuclear energy sector?

[Greg Hands]

A previous question referred to Teesside as the centre of the green industrial revolution, but Peterborough is also one of the great centres in this country of the green industrial revolution, and there is no better champion of that than my hon. Friend, who is right at the centre of it. He is right that the £120 million nuclear innovation fund will create options for future nuclear capability, including the recent Rolls-Royce small modular reactors, which have £210 million of funding. There are plenty of opportunities there for his constituents to get into, and I thank him for his championing of the green industrial revolution.