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UK Manufacturing

It is apposite that we have the opportunity to debate UK manufacturing industries at this moment, during a deep recession. Somebody spoke earlier about political amnesia, but one thing is for certain: people are not going to forgot the hurt that has been felt during this recession. My hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose), the shadow Minister, spoke about the need to make absolutely certain that we do not resort to protectionism—a view with which I agree heartily. The last thing we want is a wall built around the European Union as some sort of protectionist device. Even if we were to build a wall around it, I suspect that we would put the contract out to tender and the Chinese would win it. We know that they are pretty good at building great walls, but it would be of no benefit whatever to us. We really do believe in free trade. Before I move on to the impact of manufacturing and its importance to us, I wish to make a brief point about trade missions and exhibitions, which I feel are vital. I am a co-chairman of the all-party export group, and I believe that the attempt to save a bit of money by cutting back on trade missions and exhibitions throughout the world has been rather foolish in the long term. Frankly, I thought that we made a grave mistake when got rid of the royal yacht and did not replace it with anything. We could have had a new yacht, manufactured in Britain, as a showpiece throughout the world on which to exhibit goods made in the UK, supported by our trade ambassador, Prince Andrew. We did not, and at the same time we cut the number of missions and exhibitions we support throughout the world. Other countries are not doing likewise. Our so-called European friends are also our competitors, and they are getting out there in the world and promoting the goods that they manufacture. I do not blame them for that; I blame us for not matching them. We have taken the same attitude towards our embassies, high commissions and consulates throughout the world. We are cutting back and closing missions right, left and centre and bringing the flag down. We might think that that is associated with our colonial past, but it has nothing to do with that and everything to do with our trading future. The Chinese are also our competitors in manufacturing, and they are doubling or trebling missions. I hope that the Minister will look again at our attitude to trade missions and exhibitions throughout the world. It was asked earlier how many manufacturing jobs have been created recently. The only figure that I have compares the number of people employed in manufacturing in 1997, when we left office, with today. In 1997 it was 4.53 million, and today it is 2.7 million. There has been a huge reduction. Manufacturing is still important to the UK, and it is not simply at the hands of this Government that it has reduced. It has happened over successive generations. However, we have to realise that there is a problem and that we cannot base the future of this country simply on the service sector. It is absolutely right that we have to invest in research and development. We talk about innovation, which we are pretty good at, but we have to be pretty good at production as well. We have to build on the fact that we are good at innovation and research and development. Some of us managed to see the Lightning, the electric sports car that will hopefully be built in the midlands, in the House a few weeks ago. It has had a lot of research and development here, and it will be manufactured here as well. It will do 198 miles before it needs to be recharged. That is the future, but we must not turn our back on the car industry of the past in the midlands and other parts of the country, which is suffering greatly. We support the car scrappage scheme, which works in France and Germany. I think that the Government made the right decision—we will have to monitor the scheme to ascertain whether it needs to be extended when the time comes, rather than turning our back on it. BAE Systems operates in my constituency, where we have a superb plant. As I am sure the Minister knows, it employs 4,500 in the Samlesbury plant in my constituency, and 7,000 in the Warton plant, which is not far away. Thanks to the company's putting so much investment into the two plants in the north-west, many other jobs have been created in small enterprises. Frankly, many people could not name those small companies, some of them based in lock-ups, and would not even know what they were doing, but the existence of BAE means their existence. It would therefore be short-termist of any political party that takes over in 2010 or earlier and is trying to save public funds to cut defence expenditure and procurement. We need to ensure that our troops have the equipment that they need to protect the country and that there is sufficient investment in future in projects such as the Lightning, and in the joint strike fighter and other aircraft.