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Economic Recovery

Given the amount being printed and the amount that the Government want to borrow, we are in for a weak currency, unfortunately. I do not think that that is the worry; the worry is whether we get the response. That is the issue that I am trying to address. That was a good way for the hon. Gentleman to influence my speech. The answer is that we will not get enough of a response for import substitution or direct export unless we get these things right. People have to have access to capital and land with planning permission, and to the right kind of factory space, with the right kind of floors, loadings and eaves heights, so that they can do modern manufacturing in a good environment. They need access to the skilled people, young and old, and they need very high-quality engineers and other such people to go in, take the risks and develop the products. The world’s manufacturers know how to drive a process for quality. We can make expensive items out of a high-cost labour base, and I am not one who wants to drive down wages. I want staff on high wages who are well rewarded and motivated because they are skilled. We do not need many of them, but we need to use them intelligently in successful manufacturing. In good manufacturing, labour costs might be only 10 or 15 per cent. of total selling price, so it is not the main driver. It is not impossible to run really good manufacturing out of a UK, US or German base, as we can see in many examples. I am conscious that others wish to join in this very short debate. My conclusions are that we need to give every sensible incentive so that we can have this massive shift out of consuming and borrowing and into producing and making to tackle the balance of payments deficit and the very large deficits across the economy. We have the groundwork for that, with the large devaluation brought about by an incredibly sloppy money policy and by printing so many pounds. We must not throw that away or waste it. The early evidence is that the reaction is not strong enough. That implies that the Government need to look at the availability of people, of buildings and land, of planning permission and of orders. If, for example, the Government had an energy policy that they could announce and activate, that would trigger a large number of orders for all kinds of things in the energy sector, but we have had dither and delay. If we had a proper transport policy that was more clearly defined, that could also trigger the sort of orders that we need. I urge the Government not to rest on their lack of laurels or think that because they are printing so much money, the economy will suddenly come miraculously right. Printing money without things happening on the ground just causes inflation and far worse mess and distress. If we are to make anything out of the mess, we need now to put in place policies that create orders and create a sensible level of regulation and low taxation, so that people will want and be able to make things here and so that we can get people back into jobs.