Britain’s Industrial Future

I would like to start by giving apologies on behalf of the shadow Secretary of State, who is unable to be here today for personal reasons.

The motion in my name and in the names of my right hon. and hon. Friends should be self-evident. We want to see the great British industries that have shaped our nation last long into the future, securing our transition to net zero while bringing the jobs and skills so desperately needed in many of our communities. Those skills need to be skills of the future. That is why Labour is committed to 100,000 extra apprenticeships each year and flexibility in the use of the apprenticeship levy to support the training of existing workers. This Government claim that they want to level up the country, but can they deliver well-paid jobs in the areas of the country that they claim to care about? Sadly, it seems that those promises, as we have seen with so many other Conservative promises, are simply not worth the manifesto they were written on.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I will give way shortly.

Today, many of our industries, including steel, car manufacturing and shipbuilding, are facing an existential threat from spiralling energy costs, cheap imports and inflation. To make matters worse, they are also facing an indifferent Conservative Government. While other nations have had the foresight to retain a competitive advantage and invest in future technologies, here in Britain the Conservatives are happy to watch decades of expertise and reputation go abroad, along with the high-quality jobs that underpin our industrial communities.

Before the Minister blames international challenges, let us just remind Conservative MPs that this country is uniquely exposed to global economic problems. That is why the Bank of England has described UK-specific factors as behind the high interest rates that threaten homeowners and businesses with higher borrowing costs. The Conservatives have presided over 12 years of low growth, low investment and low productivity. Business investment under this Government is the lowest in the G7. We are the only G7 country where the economy is contracting, and the only one where the economy has not recovered to pre-pandemic levels. The Conservatives crashed the economy and they do not have a plan for recovery. Meanwhile, according to the latest Office for National Statistics business survey, a fifth of businesses say that uncertainty about demand and business prospects is holding back their investment plans. We can see what the former Chancellor meant when he used the phrase “vicious cycle of stagnation”.

Does my hon. Friend agree that, although other European countries have recognised the energy costs facing the steel industry, this Government have done absolutely nothing about them? It is a major problem facing the industry. Although the long-term future might be hydrogen, as we hope it is, it will not happen without the Government—hopefully a Labour Government—putting in the investment needed to ensure it happens.

My right hon. Friend is right to speak on behalf of the steel industry, which faces an existential crisis and may well depend on a Labour Government coming to the rescue.

Does my hon. Friend share my frustration that the Government are playing hokey-cokey with Northern Powerhouse Rail, first putting it in their manifesto and then taking it out under Boris Johnson, then putting it in under Liz Truss and taking it out again under Rishi Sunak?

Order. The hon. Lady knows she must refer to other Members not by name but by constituency.

I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Does my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) agree that, if we want to deliver an industrial strategy, we need Northern Powerhouse Rail to be delivered in full?

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. She is confused because we have had so many Conservative Prime Ministers in the last few weeks that it is hard to keep up. Like her, I want to see Northern Powerhouse Rail linking my constituency on the west coast with her constituency on the east coast, providing economic benefits all the way along the route.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I will give way. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will apologise for supporting a Government who crashed the economy.

The hon. Gentleman said he would come back to me when I sought to intervene on his talk of jobs in areas that we promised to level up, such as Stoke-on-Trent. He will, of course, welcome the 500 brand new Home Office jobs that have come to Stoke-on-Trent thanks to the Conservative Government, the 9,000 jobs that have been created thanks to the Conservative-led Stoke-on-Trent City Council under Councillor Abi Brown, and the 1,700 jobs at Chatterley Valley West that the Labour council opposed in May’s elections.

Unfortunately, the hon. Gentleman does not understand that 12 years of low growth, low investment and low productivity mean that places like Stoke-on-Trent have been hit very badly by this Conservative Government.

Where has 12 years of Conservative Government left British industry, not least in places such as Stoke-on-Trent? Manufacturing has seen the worst output over three months since the 1980s. Anyone who genuinely wants to turn around the UK’s poor economic performance cannot discount the role of industry in our economic growth. It is not a question of being either a service-led or a manufacturing-led economy. Successful economies are a combination, and successful industries are a combination, too. Good manufacturing depends on the services that support production.

Labour knows the value and understands the crucial role of our industrial base in delivering economic growth, which is why we have outlined our industrial strategy to give businesses certainty that they can invest alongside Government to safeguard our world-class industries. Economic strength needs partnership between Government and market, and between business and worker. Our new industrial strategy has partnership at its core, because partnership is how we ensure strong, secure growth and a fairer, greener future.

Our plans for a national wealth fund to invest in our great industries will play a crucial role, alongside businesses and trade unions, in delivering the certainty that investors and workers need. Labour’s plan will bring businesses, workers and trade unions together to safeguard the future of an industry that is the pride of communities across the country. I am talking, of course, about steel.

What we need is not crunch crisis talks and random nationalisations but investment in our great industries, with a real plan to secure our steelmaking future through a partnership to invest in the technology that our steelmakers need to export green steel around the world. But for 12 years the Conservatives have failed to back Britain’s steel industry. The Government have let the industry decline, with jobs offshored and communities damaged. While Governments around the world have been committed to their domestic industries, with long-term strategic investment in green steel production, the Conservatives have failed to invest in the transition, have attempted to weaken safeguards that protected our steelmakers from being undercut by cheap steel imports and have splashed tens of millions of pounds on imported steel to build British schools and hospitals.

Would a Labour Government be looking to support the steel industry in the same way as Labour did between 1997 and 2010: by halving the number of workers in the industry?

The hon. Lady should perhaps take more care about how the Chinese are threatening to pull the plug on steel production in her constituency right now.

The shadow Minister mentioned green steel. Do the Labour party’s plans include anything to do with a carbon border adjustment mechanism, which would, not just for steel, but all heavy energy using industries, level the playing field between British energy users, particularly manufacturing industries, and their cheaper competitors elsewhere in the world, who have cheaper energy costs? Is that part of the Labour party’s plans?

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should be asking the Minister that question rather than me. [Interruption.] He has told me he is going to ask the Minister in a minute, and I look forward to the answer. Our view is that we have to respond to the fact that the EU is already doing this and we are clearly going to have to take action to safeguard the steel industry in this country. So I would be very interested in what the Minister says and whether it is consistent with what I have said.

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that what Conservative Members seem to be failing to recognise is that they have had 12 years to deal with the massive disparity in electricity costs between ourselves and our nearest competitors? There has been a total failure to have a procurement strategy that works for the UK steel industry and a complete absence of any action to support the transition to net zero. So rather than us take any lectures from Conservative Members, it is time they showed some humility and actually started to take some decisions about this vital foundation industry.