Cutlers' Feast, Sheffield: Oliver Coppard backs call for 'bold' Industrial Strategy after Labour warned UK manufacturing 'can't survive on sentiment'

Mr Coppard was speaking in response to a keynote speech given by Professor Keith Jackson, senior warden of the Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire, a trade guild representing 255 companies with combined revenues of £2 billion and tens of thousands of employees in South Yorkshire.

This year’s feast took place against the backdrop of increasing global political tensions as well as concerns for the future of Liberty Steel which employs 1,500 people in South Yorkshire and an ongoing Government rescue of British Steel in Scunthorpe.

Professor Jackson said “British manufacturing cannot survive on sentiment” and the expected publication of the Government’s industrial strategy next month needs to deliver a fully-funded long-term plan “aligning defence, energy, infrastructure, skills, innovation and trade into one mission – to grow British industry, grow world-class capabilities and secure our economic future”.

He added strategic sectors like energy, steel and defence required targeted investment, while the strategy must also look to lower industrial energy costs which are far higher than those seen in Europe.

Professor Jackson said the current state of geopolitics makes such changes even more vital.

He said: "This not business as usual. Russian aggression, US tariffs, China’s accelerated innovation demand national resilience. We must build green energy capacity, revive UK steel and increase defence investment. South Yorkshire is primed with cutting-edge materials and advanced manufacturing yet too many defence contracts go abroad.

"2025 is a defining moment. We believe [that with] a clear, ambitious long-term industrial strategy that delivers competitive energy costs, a modern highly-skilled workforce, innovation that saves, scales and exports from the UK, together we can power a manufacturing renaissance, reclaim UK manufacturing as the engine of growth and craft a better future for Britain.”

Mr Coppard said he agreed with Professor Jackson’s analysis.

"The world is changing at a dizzying pace. That means developing at pace our sovereign manufacturing capability, it means doubling down on clean energy technology and it means growing our own defence and security industries.

"I wholeheartedly back the Warden’s call for the Government to offer significant support for strategic sectors, for a doubling of the UK’s manufacturing output and for the upcoming Industrial Strategy and the Spending Review to be bold, to back our makers and manufacturers.

"South Yorkshire can be, must be, will be, the best place in the world for advanced manufacturing.”

Advanced manufacturing, a term used to describe production processes that rely on cutting-edge science and technology research, is to be one of eight priority areas for the new industrial strategy. The Government has already described South Yorkshire as having a “world-leading cluster” of organisations working in the field.

In 2023, South Yorkshire was named as the UK’s first Investment Zone with a specific focus on advanced manufacturing.

At the time, the then Conservative Government said it was expected that the Investment Zone will help leverage more than £1.2bn of private funding and help support more than 8,000 jobs by 2030 in South Yorkshire.

The new Labour Government has said its industrial strategy will “focus on tackling barriers to growth and creating the right conditions for increased investment, to ensure a lasting positive impact in communities across the UK, including South Yorkshire”.