Industrial strategy must deliver sweeping reforms: Greg Wright

The warning bell has been sounding for some time. Stephen Phipson, chief executive of the manufacturing group Make UK, has called on the Government to tackle the hard realities facing British industry, which include sky-high energy costs, an inability to access talent and untapped investments from a lack of access to finance.

Other issues holding back growth include a broken system of public procurement, according to a report from MPs on the Business and Trade Committee.

It brings back memories of the day I met Tim Smit, who is the driving force behind the Eden Project in Cornwall, and a passionate supporter of manufacturing. Back in 2007, in an age of relative innocence before the financial crash, Mr Smit told me that most bankers he’d met didn’t have a clue about business.

He added: “I think this country has been completely let down by the lack of support for manufacturing. These guys in Government talk about Britain needing to look to its future as a service industry. Servicing what? If the Pacific Rim invents things, they are going to work out very nicely how to service everything themselves and we are going to become a real second class place.”

Almost two decades later, Mr Smit’s comments still ring true. What is needed is a detailed industrial strategy to provide a route into skilled, long-term jobs for people who are currently trapped in low paid, insecure work. The obsession with financial and professional services has sucked the life-blood out of large sections of our economy. Since the de-industrialisation process of the 1980s, skilled working class jobs, which offered the prospect of long-term employment, have, to a large extent, been replaced with insecure jobs in the service sector.

The latest data provides policymakers with plenty of food for thought. We’ve been told the UK manufacturing sector shrank again last month but may be “turning a corner”. Factories saw the recent downturn linked to trade tensions, US tariffs and higher costs slow down during May but highlighted that confidence was still “subdued”. The S&P Global UK manufacturing PMI survey, watched closely by economists, showed a reading of 46.4 in May, up from 45.4 in April. Rob Dobson, director at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said the data indicates that UK manufacturing faces major challenges, including turbulent market conditions, trade uncertainties, low client confidence and rising tax-related wage costs. However, anyone seeking evidence that Yorkshire’s manufacturing sector is alive and kicking should attend Leeds Beckett University on June 12, where I will be acting as compere for an awards presentation evening for the rising stars of local industry. It’s part of the Leeds Manufacturing Festival, which is tackling the shortage of new recruits by highlighting the large number of lucrative, long term jobs available in the sector. All our manufacturers need is for Government to destroy the shackles that are stopping them investing for growth.

Greg Wright is deputy business editor of The Yorkshire Post