Manufacturing

Debate between Valerie Vaz and Pat McFadden

Thursday 24th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr McFadden]

That is a good example. I know that my hon. Friend is a keen runner. In my more conscientious days, I have also done some running. New Balance is an excellent product. He shows that globalisation is a two-way street, not a one-way street.

The emphasis on the past that sometimes characterises these debates can lead to an over-pessimistic discussion about decline and loss. Let us be honest: we make less than we used to, as is clearly shown by the figures. However, I also believe that we make more than we think and more than we sometimes give ourselves credit for. The point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Tony Cunningham) shows that, and there are other examples. We still make about 1.5 million cars a year, most of them for export. We have heard news today that Toyota has again chosen the UK as the base for a new model, which I understand will create up to 1,500 jobs. We also have a hugely successful pharmaceutical industry with a strong balance of trade surplus.

Although we had a debate earlier about British aerospace that centred on the loss of jobs, that sector as a whole is strong and is an important earner for us. Only this week, Goodrich, a company in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds), won a contract to maintain landing gear systems for the United States air force. That company has already taken on 200 people this year, and it aims to keep hiring in the period to come.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way and the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) for securing the debate.

May I bring the House’s attention to another success story, which is in my constituency? Chamberlin and Hill has actually won contracts back from China for making castings for turbo-charged engines.

[Mr McFadden]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Chamberlin and Hill is a company that I know well and a fine example of what the Germans would call a mittelstand—a medium-sized company—that is doing very well. What is its slogan? It is “Difficult things, done well”, I think, and it does indeed do them extremely well.

As we heard a moment or two ago, we have all been delighted by the news that Jaguar Land Rover is to locate its new engine plant on the boundary of Wolverhampton in the constituency of the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson). That investment of more than £300 million will mean more than 1,700 new manufacturing jobs directly, but many more than that in the supply chain and indirectly in the wider economy. In a sense, Jaguar Land Rover is a microcosm of the story of globalisation. Its Indian owner, the Tata group, is investing heavily in new models that are being sold in a number of new markets, which are growing because there is a growing middle class keen to buy high-quality, prestige vehicles. That is also why it is hiring more workers in the constituency of the hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt).

I use those few examples to illustrate that although there has been decline and closure over the years—in my constituency we saw more than our fair share, with the closures of Stewarts and Lloyds, Sankey’s and many others some years ago—the story of manufacturing in the UK is not always one of decline and loss. We need to believe more in what we still make, and resolve to value more the activity of making things. In a short debate such as this, there is not much time to discuss the detailed policy prescriptions that might make that happen, but I should like to mention a few things that we could do to support manufacturing more.

First, as I have said, we can challenge the culture of decline and loss. As a country, we should resolve to be the best place in the world for engineering. That might not mean that we are the biggest manufacturing economy in the world, but we should resolve to be the best place for it. That resolve should be shared by Government, our universities and our top companies, and it should fire the imagination of the next generation about the huge benefits that creativity, innovation and making things can bring.

As we heard a few minutes ago, one positive step in that direction is the Queen Elizabeth prize for engineering, which has just been announced and which the Royal Academy of Engineering will oversee. The Royal Academy is right to emphasise that the benefits of engineering go way beyond pure manufacturing and contribute far more than we think to our wider economy. I personally believe that the boundaries between a rigid manufacturing sector and services are becoming outdated. Rolls-Royce, for example, talks about “manu-services” and about earning as much from maintaining and servicing products as from just making and delivering them. We need to do something about the national resolve on manufacturing.

Secondly, we have to get tax policy right. I want to heed the advice of my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey), not to be too partisan, but I say gently that I cannot see how cutting investment allowances helps the Government’s stated aim of rebalancing the economy, at a time when the life cycle of products is getting shorter. It is a £3 billion-a-year hit on manufacturing, to fund a corporation tax cut for banks and other businesses that do not always invest. It seems to me to run completely counter to Government rhetoric about supporting manufacturing. The Government should be making it easier for manufacturing companies to take investment decisions, not more expensive as that change to the tax system does.

Thirdly, we need an active industrial policy. We have become too defensive of the accusation that the Government should not pick winners. There is nothing wrong with a nation looking at the changes that are to come—be they for a low-carbon economy or a more digitally connected world—and resolving that the UK must have the capacity to make the most of them. The Government are a big market player. That should be a priority not only for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, but for the Ministry of Defence, the Department of Health, the Department for Education and many other Departments. All should think about their budgets and activities in terms of industry policy, but far too often, they do not do so. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills should not be the only bit of the Government that thinks about business and industry—thinking about business must be done far more broadly across the board.

Finally, we ought to rethink our definition of making things. It is a touch old-fashioned in the digital age to think of making things only as making things that we can see or touch. Our country is a world leader in creative industries. The truth is that change has meant that people who might have become engineers or involved in manufacturing in the past are now making other things. Our TV formats are exported around the world; our football teams are watched around the world; the computer games that are developed and made in the UK are played around the world; and our musicians are listened to around the world. Everyone involved in those activities is also involved in making things, so our definitions have fallen behind the reality of the modern economy and what we as a nation are good at. Times have changed and creativity has been bent to new ends.

If we think about making things in that broader sense, we will throw into sharp relief the sense of loss and decline that can characterise such debates. My plea is therefore to think about making things in the broader sense. What we need in future is both belief and action to back that belief. If we have those, we can make many more things in that broader sense in times to come.