Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Vince Cable and Marcus Jones

Thursday 18th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

Monthly variations are not the issue, but there is an underlying problem. British exporters are currently doing extremely well in the big emerging markets. We have rapid export growth to countries such as Russia, China, India and Brazil, for example, but exports to the eurozone are weak, for obvious reasons. We accept that there are underlying weaknesses. We have not had the recovery of export volume growth that we would expect following a substantial devaluation. Much of this relates to the way in which supply chains were hollowed out in the long period of manufacturing decline, but we are trying to rebuild them through the industrial strategy.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

2. What recent support his Department has given to the automotive industry.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

The automotive industrial strategy was launched on Friday by the Department in association with the Automotive Council. In partnership with industry, we will invest around £1 billion over 10 years in a new advanced propulsion centre.

[Mr Jones]

I met a number of business people from the motor manufacturing supply chain recently, and the main theme of the meeting was skills, and what we could do to help to increase the skills in the sector, in which there is now a real resurgence. Will my right hon. Friend explain a little more about his strategy? Will he tell us what part skills will play in it, and what more we can do to help the supply chain?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Vince Cable and Marcus Jones

Thursday 8th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

I was disappointed that I could not join my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on his recent visit to the MIRA technology park. Despite my personal disappointment, will he join me in celebrating this world-class project, which will create 2,000 jobs in the midlands region, and does he agree that it has been facilitated by the regional growth fund and the enterprise zone policies of this Government?

[Vince Cable]

Indeed, I have now been twice to MIRA. It is a magnificent institution and one of the most successful in the UK at promoting advanced technology. MIRA has benefited from the regional growth fund and a successful enterprise zone, and could well expand to become a world-class centre for transport technology.

Industrial Strategy

Debate between Vince Cable and Marcus Jones

Monday 10th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

Construction is one of the key enabling sectors; it has to be. It has been doing badly in recent years, since the collapse of the housing and commercial property boom, and is in considerable distress. One of the reasons why the economy is not growing is what is happening in construction projects. To address the problem, the Government are now deploying a combination of support for infrastructure, the guarantees that the Chancellor has announced and the initiatives on housing and planning that were announced a couple of days ago.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

Many of my constituents work in the motor manufacturing industry, which has grown strongly in the past two years. Many UK motor manufacturers are now looking to repatriate their supply chains back to the UK. What support and help can the Secretary of State offer to facilitate that aspiration?

[Vince Cable]

That is absolutely right. It is very important that we stress this. The big investment that has been made by the main car companies—the original equipment manufacturers—is only part of the story. There is now a will to bring back a lot of the lost supply chains, which went for a variety of reasons, including exchange rates and a fashion for outsourcing that has been partially reversed. This is being actively pursued through the Automotive Council, which is involved with the Government in doing so. As my hon. Friend may know, we have a supply chain funding initiative that is currently open to competition, and a variety of bids have come in actively to support the process that he describes.

Executive Pay

Debate between Vince Cable and Marcus Jones

Monday 23rd January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

That was not the recommendation to which I referred. The commission also made a specific recommendation about a double number between salary and top-up to salary. For a variety of reasons, we do not feel that being quite so prescriptive is appropriate, but that was the recommendation to which I referred and which we were not able to take forward.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that the state should not control private sector pay, but empower shareholders with the information they need so that they can be active and committed company owners?

[Vince Cable]

That is a pithy summary of what I was trying to say, on which, as Mr Speaker ruled, I took rather too long.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Vince Cable and Marcus Jones

Thursday 27th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

As part of rebalancing the British economy, we are taking steps to support manufacturing in the UK by encouraging high levels of business, innovation, investment, exports and technical skills. I set out our strategy for achieving that in a talk to Policy Exchange yesterday.

[Mr Jones]

From recent discussions with several representatives of our largest manufacturing companies, it is apparent that they are now looking actively to bring more UK supply manufacture back to our country, but they seem to question whether some of our small and medium-sized enterprises have sufficient capacity or investment to meet the growth in demand in this area. What can the Government do to help facilitate the right conditions to help some of our SMEs meet this increasing demand?

[Vince Cable]

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that there is a supply chain issue. We are hearing good news from the automobile and aerospace sectors, with the large primes, such as Tata, Rolls-Royce and Airbus, making large investments. However, we also need to attract back the supply chains, which is already happening, particularly in the car industry. We have bodies that co-operate with industry in both those sectors: the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk) chairs one of them and I chair the other. We are therefore working actively with industry to attract the supply chains back to the UK.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vince Cable]

No, I cannot confirm that, but I will speak to my colleague at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport about the impact on the art market, and how we propose to proceed with that in the European Union.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

The success of apprenticeships is undoubtedly vital to future prosperity in areas such as the west midlands. Will my hon. Friend update the House on the progress of the apprenticeship programme in the west midlands region?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Vince Cable and Marcus Jones

Thursday 14th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

Unlike my predecessors, I do not see my job in terms of empire building; I am more concerned that we should get good policy. The Deputy Prime Minister has spoken today on the need radically to reform policy in relation to competition and cross-ownership in the media. Indeed, we might well have to revisit the legislation, because it is clearly unsatisfactory.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

With reference to the Minister’s response to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson), Triton Showers, which employs 400 people in my constituency, is extremely concerned that the waste electrical and electronic equipment directive is now being aggressively enforced by the Environment Agency. Bearing in mind the Minister’s earlier answer, will he now make representations to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on this issue, which is causing real concern in the electric shower industry?

Trade and Investment for Growth White Paper

Debate between Vince Cable and Marcus Jones

Wednesday 9th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

My colleague the Trade Minister, Lord Green, was in Northern Ireland only a few days ago, meeting Bombardier and other key investors. The hon. Gentleman is quite right to stress the importance of trade with the Irish Republic; somebody pointed out to me recently that our trade with Ireland is worth more than our trade with the BRIC countries put together. Clearly we must not forget that.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

There are many SMEs, particularly manufacturers, in my constituency that are capable of taking on the export opportunities that my right hon. Friend mentions. Often they do not readily receive the relevant information on how to take up those opportunities. How will the information about those opportunities be disseminated to grass-roots SMEs in constituencies such as mine?

[Vince Cable]

My colleague the Minister of State, Lord Green, is developing a support package for SMEs that involves a much more accessible website that I hope will give the information that such companies require. I totally accept the basic point that, because of a lack of information, there is often a gap between what is available and what is accessed.

Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Performance)

Debate between Vince Cable and Marcus Jones

Wednesday 2nd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

Let me finish my point about manufacturing and then I will take another intervention. I shall pursue the point I was making in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon about what we have inherited from the previous Government—a decade of remarkable de-industrialisation. Let us go back over the numbers. In 1997 the share of manufacturing in the British economy was about 20%—just a little less than in Germany, Japan and Italy. A decade later it had fallen to 11%, and far more rapidly than in any other industrial country. Manufacturing employment in that period fell from 4.3 million to 2.5 million, so we lost almost 2 million people in the manufacturing sector. The manufacturing trade deficit over that period rose from £7 billion to £53 billion.

[Mr Marcus Jones]

My right hon. Friend’s argument is compelling. Does he agree that the Labour Government’s record on manufacturing was absolutely despicable, because we lost those 1.8 million manufacturing jobs on their watch? Labour Members seem to forget that.

[Vince Cable]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: that is the core point. It is a strange irony, because many Labour Members came from industrial Britain and had built their movement on it. In that decade, however, manufacturing industry was substantially devastated, and we are living with the legacy of it now. What we must emphasise—this is the core of our growth strategy, which the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie) asked about—is that manufacturing matters, and we will do everything we can to support it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Vince Cable and Marcus Jones

Thursday 8th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I met Dr Ratan Tata when he came through London. We have not had detailed discussions on the future of the steel project—we remember the consequences of the closure on Teesside—but we support the continuation of training for those redundant workers who require it and have not found their own way following redundancy.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

The Minister may be aware that the selections for the UK WorldSkills squad are due to take place in anticipation of the 60th WorldSkills competition, held in London next year. One of the selection events is taking place in my constituency at the excellent North Warwickshire and Hinckley college during November. Will the Minister consider accompanying me on a visit to the college during that week, to see the excellent work that the students are doing?