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Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

In common, I think, with several other Members who will contribute today, this will possibly be my last speech in the House, after 27 years of representing Sheffield, Central, and after five years before that as a Member of the European Parliament. I was first elected to public office, as an MEP, in 1979, having left school at 15 years of age to start my engineering apprenticeship at the company that is now Forgemasters—a great company that has recently been in the news, and to which I shall return a little later. I warmly welcome the Budget, like many of us who have been championing manufacture and wealth creation for many years. We see it as a Budget that recognises the need for the economy to be rebalanced, with a greater proportion of wealth creation being achieved through manufacturing. Its measures will help us to continue to take the country along that rebalancing journey. The Budget's £2.5 billion one-off growth package is very important, particularly for areas such as Sheffield. There will be investment in the creative industries, digital communications, the medipark and the advanced manufacturing park. That is a reflection of recent policy, particularly the new industrial strategy introduced by the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills when he returned from Europe—I think his experiences as a European Commissioner must have had an effect. I want to remind the House, however, that Sheffield has been modernising and repositioning its economy for more than a decade. We have been modernising to meet the challenges of the globalised world of the 21st century, with our two outstanding universities, a very strong further education college, industrial and commercial sectors that want to work in partnership, and the support of Yorkshire Forward, our regional development agency. We have developed, through those very strong partnerships, centres of excellence such as the medipark, the cultural industries, digital Sheffield and our advanced manufacturing park. The Budget will strengthen all four of those major activities, and those areas will be major centres of employment and wealth creation in the future. Let us consider just one of those, the advanced manufacturing park, which is closely linked to the university of Sheffield under the leadership of Professor Keith Ridgway. The project was set up 10 years ago to address the productivity and the competitiveness of our aerospace industry, which is a sector that has an order book of more than £40 billion and that employs well over 100,000 people, many of whom are employed in the skills sector. The park has grown to be one of the most respected advanced manufacturing parks in the world. The recent investment by Rolls-Royce and the Government in a nuclear manufacturing park, which is to be located alongside the aerospace facilities, will enable the techniques and innovation that have been developed over the years in the aerospace industry to be transferred to the nuclear sector, thus enabling that development to be a smart partner for the nuclear build programme. This is an area of great potential for British manufacturing and technology, addressing the green agenda not just here, but internationally. Twelve nuclear power stations could be built in the UK at the cost of about £60 billion. That is estimated to be about 4 per cent. of the world's order book. Again, that development is encouraged by the announcement in the Budget. I said that we had been working on this project for more than a decade. In fact, it was 10 years ago that I had dinner in the House—in the Churchill Room—with Phil Condit, then chief executive of Boeing, and Professor Keith Ridgway. From that dinner came the start of a £6 million investment to be made in the intellectual property of the university of Sheffield and the vision of Keith Ridgway. I facilitated that dinner and I am proud to have been involved in that project ever since. Today, BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce and many other companies involved in the supply chain are involved in the park, with some of the work being done on blue skies technology and research and development. As I said, the nuclear new build programme and developments in the industry have attracted a good partnership between the Government and Rolls-Royce, which has resulted in a £35 million investment in that nuclear development. In 2008, I organised another dinner in the House, which was similar to the one that took place in the Churchill Room 10 years ago. It enabled representatives of five universities, five captains of industry—Graham Honeyman, chief executive of Forgemasters, was there—and two Secretaries of State to discuss how universities, Government and industry could work together to exploit the nuclear renaissance for the UK for many years to come. On Sunday, The Sunday Times accused me of acting improperly in organising that dinner—the dinner that brought together universities, Government and industry to discuss how we could act collectively in the best interests of UK plc. Throughout my 27 years in the House, I have been doing just—acting in the best interests of the UK, be it through my post as Chair of the Trade and Industry Committee, in my role for the past 14 years as trustee of the Industry and Parliament Trust or through my contacts with the trade unions, employers' organisations and industrial groups. Those are all people who want British industry to grow and prosper. That is my record and I am proud of it. If it is wrong in the eyes of The Sunday Times, I plead guilty. A few years ago, the House passed the Freedom of Information Act. The press were rightly at the forefront of the demand for it, but now, when the press use misleading evidence obtained through sting operations—this is evidence that could not be used in court—they believe that it is their right to keep it from those whom they accuse. My lawyers twice requested the information that appeared in The Sunday Times, but they did not receive any response. What people read in The Sunday Times was a deliberate fabrication, which was designed to mislead. I do not believe that we have a level playing field, and when the House returns it ought seriously to consider the balance between freedom of information and what the press are doing through their sting operations and not allowing those whom they accuse in the newspapers, and the nation, to challenge information that cannot even be used in the courts of this land. Returning to the Budget, as I said, I started at Forgemasters as an engineer apprentice at the age of 15. Last week, on Friday, the MPs in Sheffield, the two vice-chancellors, the further education colleges and Yorkshire Forward met to discuss the skills agenda of the future, from our skill shortages, which could be an impediment to growth, to the quality of training needed to ensure that the aerospace and nuclear supply chains are up to scratch. We have concerns, although we warmly welcome the announcement of the promise on the skills agenda. The budget for this area should be increased, and we believe we need a clear focus on delivery. That is something we are working on as a result of that meeting, and we hope to produce some ideas about delivery, which we think is very important, and to remove some of the confusion around it. For the record, I shall continue to be involved in that when I have left Parliament. Finally, I want to conclude on the subject of a significant investment in Sheffield Forgemasters—a 16,000 tonne forging press, which will be one of the largest forging presses, if not the largest, in the world. It has taken nearly three years to develop that plan and bring it to fruition, and I want to put on record my thanks to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, his Ministers and special advisers, along with Tim Stone from PricewaterhouseCoopers. They have worked very effectively to make this happen. As for Sheffield Forgemasters, it has been said that this would not have happened had it not been for the vision of people such as Graham Honeyman, Tony Pedder and Peter Birtles, but there was also strong support from the work force. Half of the company is now owned by the work force and the pride in those young people, particularly the 70 apprentices who work there, has to be seen to be believed. That has put us in a unique position at the beginning of the supply chain worldwide and for the nuclear new build. That, I believe, is very important if we are to capitalise and see an industrial renaissance coming out of that nuclear renaissance, particularly in engineering and manufacturing. That was a great day, and it was great to be involved when that £160 million investment was announced by the Secretary of State a couple of weeks ago. The very first job that I completed while serving my time as an apprentice and coming out of that was the building of a 4,000-tonne forging press, so, having represented Sheffield, Central and Forgemasters for 27 years, it will be very pleasing to see a forging press four times greater than that and the investment that is being made. This is probably my last speech to the House, and I say with honesty that in my 31 years as an elected representative, I have never taken a single penny outside the salary that I have earned and been paid. It was only when I decided a couple of years ago to stand down and announced my retirement that a number of companies came to me and asked whether I would be a consultant and help them, probably as a non-executive director— never as a lobbyist. I was approached as someone who has been in the national institutions and who has also been an engineer. I am proud to have done that and I will continue to work for the betterment of British manufacturing, and particularly engineering, in which I believe very strongly, having had a father and a grandfather who were in the engineering industry—indeed, it runs through our DNA. It would be good to see the press talking this side of British industry up rather than talking it down.