Six simple asks of politicians to help UK manufacturers flourish: David Mosley

That tension sits at the heart of a new survey published by the Made in Group, which questioned manufacturers from across Britain on the real state of industrial confidence.

The findings make for uncomfortable reading – but they deserve to be heard loud and clear in Westminster.

Three-quarters of manufacturers say they feel barely represented in industrial policy.

Only one per cent say government funding is easy to access.

And perhaps most alarmingly, 78 per cent report moderate to severe operational impacts from energy costs, with one in four describing those costs as “survival threatening.”

These are not the grumblings of an industry resistant to change.

They are the warnings of a sector doing its level best to survive in a policy environment that too often seems designed for someone else.

At Trojan, we feel the impacts of this every day.

UK manufacturers currently pay around 24p per kilowatt hour for electricity.

In Poland, it is 17.8p, in Turkey, 8.1p, and in Egypt, 3.1p.

And energy is only part of the story.

When I look at the labour cost obligations facing a Yorkshire manufacturer compared to our counterparts in parts of Eastern Europe, Turkey and North Africa, the gap is just as sobering.

We are being asked to compete globally while carrying costs our competitors would find unimaginable.

That is not a skills gap or a productivity problem – it is a structural disadvantage that no amount of hard work or goodwill can fully overcome.

And yet the appetite to invest remains strong, yet that is the part of this story that rarely gets told.

The same survey found that 73 per cent of manufacturers are already investing in, or planning to invest in, automation and digital technologies in the next 12 months.

More than half said that if costs stabilised, they would invest more in growth, hiring, machinery and workforce training.

The potential is there, but what is missing is the platform to build from.

The sector has six clear asks of the government:

1. Reduce the overall cost burden on manufacturers, particularly around energy, employment costs and taxation – stabilise costs and unlock investment, expansion and recruitment across the sector.

2. Treat energy as strategic infrastructure, with long-term price stability that lets businesses plan with confidence rather than simply manage volatility.

3. Use public procurement to back British-made products and UK supply chains, strengthening regional economies and skilled jobs.

4. Reform apprenticeships so they actually work for SMEs, apprenticeship and training systems remain too rigid and bureaucratic. Businesses want to invest in people but need a system that is more flexible and practical.

5. Make innovation funding genuinely accessible. Too many schemes favour larger businesses with dedicated bid-writing teams, while SMEs struggle with bureaucracy and slow decision-making.

6. Give manufacturers a real seat at the table when industrial policy is being shaped. Policies written without understanding how factory floors actually operate will always miss the mark.

None of these are radical demands.

They are the basics that any serious industrial economy should have in place.

There is also a broader political point worth making.

The rise of Reform UK in places like West Yorkshire has not happened in a vacuum.

When businesses and working people feel their frustrations are not being heard, easy answers gain traction.

Many of those frustrations are rooted in genuine economic pressures that have gone unresolved for too long.

Westminster would do well to take note.

Yorkshire still has extraordinary industrial capability.

We have the skills, the heritage, the workforce and the grit.

At Trojan, we intend to keep manufacturing right here.

But if ministers truly want to rebuild Britain’s industrial base, they need to start backing the businesses that are already fighting every day to hold the line.

David Mosley is managing director of Trojan