Summer Adjournment

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I declare a lifelong interest in this subject and refer Members to the Register of Members' Financial Interests. I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak in this debate, because I want to talk about a tale of British craftsmanship at its best, our failure to compete and a remarkable industrial revival.

The automatic watch is almost the same now as when it was invented in 1770 and it has often triumphed over computers. For example, in 1970, after Apollo 13 was crippled by a ruptured oxygen tank, Jack Swigert’s Omega Speedmaster was famously used to time the critical 14-second engine burn, allowing for the crew’s safe return. Even today, the Omega Speedmaster is still the only watch to have been worn on the moon.

Secondly, I wish to discuss British craftsmanship. London led the world, changing the course of history in the 17th century by manufacturing accurate clocks that allowed us to sail throughout the world, trade, make maps and acquire the British empire. British companies such as Smith and Son, George Graham, Josiah Emery, and J. W. Benson forged the first clock-making industry, despite outbreaks of the plague and the great fire of London. Many hon. Members will know the story of John Harrison, a self-educated English clock maker who solved the problem of longitude and was eventually awarded thousands of pounds from Parliament.

Sadly, in the 18th and 19th centuries Britain lost its expertise. The decline of our watch industry is a British parable, just like the tin can.

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

My hon. Friend shares with me a love of watches. I know that he is also passionate about apprenticeships, so does he have anything to say about their importance in this area?

[Robert Halfon]

I will answer my hon. Friend in my later remarks, and I thank him for his intervention.

The decline of our watch industry is a British parable, just like the tin can and the car assembly line: we invent but others capitalise. In 1800, London was producing some 200,000 watches a year, which were exported not just to Europe, but to Russia, the middle east and even China. However, we became trapped by tradition. After Napoleon’s defeat in 1814, the Swiss started to make machine-made copies of London clocks and flooded the market with cheap products. Britain responded with protectionism and price controls. We failed to compete, and our expertise was lost to Switzerland, America and even the far east.

However, there has been a revival in recent times. In 1923, the British National Physical Laboratory produced quartz oscillators, and we all know about the production of the atomic caesium clock in 1955. These are the foundation of telecommunications, satellites and space travel. Famous British household names in horology have resurfaced: Dent & Company, and J & T Windmills, which even has a factory in Essex. Today, we have one of the greatest living names in horology, George Daniels, a British man who invented the coaxial escapement, which is the first practical new watch escapement in 250 years; it is a smoother watch movement that almost eradicates friction, and it was commercialised in 1999 by Omega. Those who have done the most to support this revival in Britain are the British Horological Institute and the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers. We have lost out to Switzerland and the far east, but we still have repair shops, a wealth of academic study and some ultra-high-end manufacturing.

So what is to be done? I welcome the Government’s policy on apprenticeships and the work of the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, who is in his place, in his promotion of craft. As I mentioned in my early-day motion 623, our funding for skills qualifications must be open to small specialist courses for industries such as horology. I strongly welcome what the Government did last year to extend funding for BHI certificates in clock and watch servicing, and repair, and I am grateful to the Leader of the House for his letter of support in that campaign.

However, there is a wider issue to address: many smaller qualifications are being discontinued because they are not profitable enough for awarding bodies. There are now just three horology training facilities in the UK: Birmingham City university; West Dean college; and the British School of Watchmaking. In Harlow, we are very lucky to have the Eversden family of watchmakers, and they show that in an age of digital technology there is still a public demand for the crafts of old. As George Daniels proved, there is still a demand for British horological genius. I hope that all possible support will be given to the watch-making and clock-making industry, which was once dying but is now showing signs of life in Britain today.