Mr. Dave Anderson (Blaydon): Is not our record in direct contrast to that of the Opposition, who actively closed coal mines, actively closed shipyards and actively destroyed the steel industry in this country?
The Minister for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr. Pat McFadden): My hon. Friend makes a good point. We cannot insulate the country from closures - I do not pretend that we can - but we do what we can to avoid them and to give help where they take place.
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Mr. Dave Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab): I did not think I would agree with much of what the Conservative Front-Bench spokesman said, but I did agree with the comment that we should not pretend that everything in the garden is rosy. That would be a disgrace, and very unfair to the people who have lost their jobs, the companies that are struggling and the communities that are under pressure.
We are certainly impacted on by the worldwide recession, but we are also impacted on by decisions taken by Governments in the past. I want to talk first about decisions taken in the 1980s in the industry I worked in - coal mining - and the effect they had not just on the people working in it, but on those working across the whole of manufacturing industry.
In the 1980s, the main way we supported underground coal mine roadways was by putting in arch girders. Arch girders cost £108 a set, and they were used for every yard we moved. In 186 pits, we were moving thousands of yards a week. By the early 1990s, however, there were hardly any pits left, and the impact on the steel industry of the fall in demand for that one piece of equipment was massive. The manufacturing base was therefore impacted on as a result of direct Government intervention, but the impact was not felt only in the nationalised industries. Companies such as Huwood in my constituency, which made conveyor belts, went to the wall; companies such as Gullick Dobson and Dowty, which were making hydraulic supports, were no longer needed; and companies such as Anderson Boyes in Motherwell, which made cutting-edge shearers and coal cutters in this country, have now disappeared or are owned by German companies. That is a clear example of the failure of the market to deliver.
We are now seeing what is happening as a result of our Government having come into office in the 1990s. We have seen the introduction of the regional development agencies; in my part of the world, that has played a major role in supporting manufacturing industry. Sadly, however, the Leader of the Opposition says the regional paraphernalia, as he has described it, is one of the things that he has in his sights in the so-called attack on the quango state. If that happens, that will have a major impact on support for manufacturing industry in the North-East of England.
The regional development agency in the North-East has set up a manufacturing advisory service, which has played a major role in assisting more than 250 companies, helping them to save almost £4 million in the last two years alone. It has also helped to cut CO2 emissions by almost 26,000 tonnes in the same period. The Government, the regional development agency and manufacturers have between them set up the New and Renewable Energy Centre in Blyth, which supports the development of electric vehicles by Smith vehicles - part of Tanfield - near Consett. It also supports Nissan in developing electric cars; my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Washington, East (Mr. Kemp) mentioned that. A new technology centre in the Sedgefield constituency has helped in the development of plastic electronics; that is another example of us tapping into the skills of the people of the North-East, supported by this Government agency that the Conservative party would do away with. A centre for innovation has been developed, too, where we will take forward cutting-edge technology on Teesside to develop biotechnology, making energy from waste and mass.
The traditional skills are still there, too, to be deployed and developed for the use of this nation, as has happened in the North-East of England for centuries. When the Minister began his comments, he spoke about the long history of manufacturing in this country, and there was some chatter about that. In my part of the world, we received a charter from Queen Elizabeth I to develop the first industrial-scale coal mining expeditions anywhere in the world, and in the early 1700s we set up the first industrial-level ironworks, and we still want work today. We are ready, we are willing and we are very, very able to build the new high-speed trains that are at present up for discussion. If the Minister really wants to do us a favour today, he should go to see the Secretary of State for Transport and tell him to give the contract for the trains to the Tyne Valley yard, which just happens to be in my constituency.
There is more to come for the future. There are real opportunities, if we grasp them between us. This is not a job that the Government alone can take on; there is also a role for the private sector. There is so much potential in the coal reserves off the North-East of England. The new methods of accessing coal, including underground gasification of coal, could transform the way coal is used to power the energy of the world. There is more coal under the North sea off the North-East of England than the whole world burns in a year, and we are leaving it there to rot. Joint work between the Government and the private sector is needed in order to access it.
Another development has also come to a standstill: carbon capture and storage. There is much debate in the industry about what to do. What infrastructure should we build? Should we build the equivalent of a B road or a motorway? If we build it too small, will it be fit for purpose for the future? If we build it too large and things do not work out, will we have we wasted money? The truth is that while we are talking nothing is happening, but it needs to.
We are entering a world where turbines that are 140 metres high with blades 55 metres long - the total sweep is 110 metres, which is more than the length of Wembley's football pitch - are being built off Aberdeen. That is the sort of technology that we are getting into and that is the sort of thing that we want to see off the North-East coast of our country. We can achieve that, but if we are to deliver it, the private sector and the Government will need to step up to the plate. One of the biggest things we are going to be worrying about is the shortage of copper to provide the energy and the cabling from the sea to the shore. We have to get our act together on that. Again, it is down to us to work with the private sector to ensure that that happens. The hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) spoke about being a free marketeer, but I am sorry to say that the free market has failed this country and without total Government intervention it will do so again.
Mr. McFadden: This short debate has shown the passion that exists in this House on the issue of manufacturing. Of course this has been a changing story for our nation and we no longer have as many large manufacturing plants with thousands of employees as we did some decades ago. However, in that story of change we must not be too quick to ascribe a story of failure and decline.
One of the themes to emerge from this debate is the impact of the recession on manufacturing. My hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr. Anderson) rightly said that it would be remiss of us not to acknowledge that, given the people who have lost their jobs and the companies that have gone to the wall. We do acknowledge that, but I wish to say something about the scale of the impact and to repeat the figures that I used in my opening comments. In the year to April, manufacturing output in the UK declined by 13 per cent., which compares with 14.6 per cent. in the United States, 19.9 per cent. in France, 24.3 per cent. in Germany and more than 30 per cent. in Japan. There has been an effect and companies have gone to the wall, but the United Kingdom has not been hit disproportionately hard compared with other countries - some countries have done worse.
A second theme was shown in the agreement across the House on the importance of the transition to a low-carbon economy for our manufacturing future. The hon. Members for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) and for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso), and my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) commented on that. It is right that carbon capture should be considered as part of that. This country has to make the most of the transition to a low-carbon economy. Hon. Members have also stressed that we need to equip our workers with the skills to take part in the low-carbon economy, and it is important to create opportunities, as well as to know that the demand exists. To that end, we have the Train to Gain programme, we have 12,000 new apprenticeships this year and we have 300,000 more higher education students than we had when we came into office. Ensuring that our country has the skills to take part is crucial, and not only for economic reasons. If we do not ensure that, there will be a great sense of exclusion from the economy of the future, and we must guard against that.
The third theme of the debate was demand, which was raised specifically by my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, West (Mr. Bailey). He rightly said that the Government made a choice as the recession hit to do what they could to stimulate demand, be that through construction, other capital projects, the car scrappage scheme or action in other areas. We have done what we could to stimulate demand. I accept that we must continue to work on the schemes that we have announced to ensure that they are effective. We have been active on some of the specific problems that have been mentioned, for example in respect of discussions between Corus and EDF Energy about energy prices.
The final theme of this debate that I wish to mention is local pride. That can be seen in the companies mentioned by hon. Members from across the House. Manufacturing gives shape and identity to our constituencies, and what goes for our constituencies also goes for our country. That is why manufacturing is such a crucial part of our economic future.
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