Britain’s Industrial Future

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure for me to speak about this issue today, as one of the three Members of Parliament representing Bolton, a town with a proud industrial history. For too long, Britain’s industrial strategy has been plagued by short-termism and vulnerability to political change. We need a real plan for businesses in Bolton and in Britain.

When I visited Booth Industries, which is based in my constituency and provides high-performance and high-integrity protection systems for various construction projects, two things became clear to me. First, it is imperative that we have a “make, buy and sell in Britain” policy when developing our industrial strategy: the benefits of that are clear. Booth Industries was granted an HS2 contract to manufacture tunnel doors, which has allowed it to diversify into other sectors. It wants to become involved with nuclear power plants in order to grow its business, but with EDF holding the contract, a significant amount of its supply chain uses French companies. Surely it makes sense to use British businesses for British nuclear power stations when fulfilling supply chain needs. That would not only develop our own supply chain resilience in Britain but support small and medium-sized enterprises, which make up 99% of British employers, and allow them to grow and invest. This is what levelling up in action means: it means helping British businesses to grow and to train staff, create jobs, improve skills training, and prevent the brain drain of people leaving the country so that they can “get on”.

We need projects such as HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail to be completed. Our train service in Bolton is abysmal. Avanti is meant to be “servicing” the north, but all it seems to service are the pockets of its shareholders, while my constituents, and people in Greater Manchester as a whole and in other parts of the north, are losing out. We need to invest in roads, rail, light rail, trams, subways and high-speed rail, so that we can have a positive impact on our economy and, of course, benefit all our constituents. Companies like Booth Industries will then have a hook for investment and growth while also improving our own public transport network. That is a genuine win-win.

Such companies also demonstrate that there is a place in Britain for well-paid, green, industrial jobs, as well as tackling climate crises. Labour’s green prosperity plan, involving investment in offshore wind and tidal, nuclear, hydrogen and solar energy, will support companies like Booth Industries a hundred times over. It is about time that Britain had a Government who would create an environment for businesses up and down our nation to flourish, contribute and invest; and it is only the Labour party that is providing the leadership Britain needs in that regard.