GKN: Proposed Takeover by Melrose

Richard Burden Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey) for securing this important debate. I echo the serious concerns that he and the hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) raised about the bid for the proposed takeover by Melrose of GKN. GKN employees raised similar concerns when I recently met them at a lobby organised by Unite the union just a couple of weeks ago, and they are echoed in my constituency, where GKN Aerospace employs 220 people and is a world leader in commercial and military flight-deck transparencies. It provides toughened glass for flight-deck windows, and specialist safety glass to more than 50 programmes. There is no better illustration of why this takeover bid has national security implications than GKN Aerospace’s military involvement at Kings Norton.

I do not need to remind the Minister of the importance of the UK’s aerospace industry. That is why we need to take the concerns raised by the industry seriously. ADS, the leading organisation representing the aerospace sector, warned that what happens to GKN is of critical importance to the wider sector. My hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West rightly mentioned the unprecedented intervention of the chief operating operator of Airbus, who said yesterday:

“It would be practically impossible for us to give any new work to GKN under such an ownership model when we don’t know who will be the long-term investor.”

GKN is also a key strategic player in the automotive sector. Driveline does pioneering work on components for the ultra-low-emission vehicles of the future. I am aware that GKN’s management is proposing to split off that part of the company through the merger of Driveline and the United States firm Dana. On the positive side, there is the prospect that that will create an engineering powerhouse in the automotive sector on a global scale. I very much hope it achieves that prospect, but I do not want to be starry-eyed about it. Ministers should seek assurances from GKN and Dana about the long-term commitment of the new merged company to the UK, including on jobs and our research and development base.

Also, if GKN Aerospace is left as a stand-alone company, I endorse west midlands industry analyst Professor David Bailey’s call—my hon. Friend is right to pay tribute to his work on this issue—for the Government to consider taking a golden share to protect the public interest in the company for the long term.

None of that makes me any warmer about the Melrose alternative. Melrose claims—the hon. Member for Redditch mentioned this—that it will

“return GKN to be an engineering and manufacturing powerhouse”,

but its track record of taking over and selling on companies does not give me confidence that its takeover bid is in the interests of the long-term future of GKN or British industry, whether in the aerospace or automotive sectors. That is why there is such cross-party opposition to the takeover bid in this House. I am pleased that Birmingham City Council’s leader, Councillor Ian Ward, and its cabinet member for jobs and skills, Councillor Brett O’Reilly, have warned about the consequences of the Melrose bid for the industrial base of Birmingham and the wider west midlands. I am pleased that they have been joined by the West Midlands Mayor, who has added his voice on the subject.

Industry analysts have observed that such a takeover bid would not be allowed to go ahead in France or Germany. That is yet another reminder, if we needed one, of why the UK’s takeover laws need urgent reform, including the public interest test, against which takeovers are assessed, and the majorities needed to approve takeovers. Why cannot we require a majority of 75% in this country, as Germany does? We must ensure that institutions whose interests are intrinsically short-term, such as hedge funds, are not able to decide on issues that affect the long-term future of key, strategic companies in our economy.

That is for the future, but GKN’s extensive role in the UK defence industry indicates, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West said, that this takeover bid raises national security issues, which means that the Government already have the grounds and the responsibility to intervene under section 58 of the Enterprise Act 2002. No doubt the Minister will say that, because the Secretary of State has a quasi-judicial role on these matters, he is prevented from saying much today, but I put this to him: it is not what Ministers say about this takeover bid that is important; it is what they do. They should intervene and block it.