Ceramics Industry
Debate between Philip Hollobone and Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-TrentWestminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Ruth Smeeth
As a former trade union officer, I urge the Minister to try to get better terms and conditions and to eat a meal. I suggest that, for her colleagues who sit down to eat, 60% of the crockery used in the Department is made in China. That statistic was secured through a parliamentary question. When will “Buy British” be a policy and not just a slogan?
We have already seen from the devastating impact on the British steel industry of what happens when the Government sit back and do nothing to defend British jobs and trade, and we cannot afford for the ceramics industry to suffer the same fate. Our ceramics businesses are doing everything right. They just have the misfortune of living, as the Chinese might say, in interesting times. However, I am in no doubt that the industry can continue to thrive if the Government are prepared to stand up for British business.
All we ask for is a level playing field. Our ceramics industry is the best in the world, but we cannot compete fairly if state-funded Chinese companies are allowed to flood our domestic market with cheap products. For generations, the lives and livelihoods of my constituents have been shaped by the ceramics industry, as the clay beneath our towns was shaped by the potters’ hands. A world-beating industry was born in the kilns of Stoke-on-Trent and wherever we travel today we will find products proudly bearing our back stamp. We cannot let that great industry go up in smoke.
Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)
We now come to the Front-Bench speeches. The SNP gets five minutes, the Opposition get five minutes and the Minister gets 10 minutes—not my rules; they are the guidelines for the House.