Manufacturing and the Future
Posted by Bob Laxton, MP for Derby North, at 11:17, Thu 26 April 2007:
As many of you will know, I have lived in Derby all my life, I love my City and that is why it is great to see it thrive. Much of that success can be attributed to our solid manufacturing base. Two companies in my constituency that I keep in regular contact with, and who are responsible for a good chunk of our success, are Rolls Royce and Bombardier. The manufacturing industry has undoubtedly faced some considerable challenges in recent decades because of increasing competition from abroad. Lower operating costs in Eastern Europe, India or the Far East have attracted many firms out of the UK and it is always disappointing when we hear that a company chooses that option. That is why I am particularly delighted that both Rolls Royce and Bombardier have, up to now, shown such a great commitment to the City of Derby and their employees. This commitment was further backed up by two recent announcements. Bombardier won a £55 million contract to build 55 Electrostar Trains and Rolls Royce secured a contract from British Airways to supply and maintain their Trent 800 engines to power 8 additional Boeing 777s. And as a supporter of the Government’s climate change agenda, it is great that BA chose Rolls Royce, whose engines beat levels of emissions required by the latest international environment legislation by up to 80%. These two contracts will guarantee jobs in the City in the medium term and it is a fantastic achievement, but how will companies like Rolls Royce compete as countries like China and India continue to grow? In my view, it is an absolute certainty that we cannot prevent globalisation. Our economy is now so integrated with the rest of the world that it would be nigh on impossible to enforce a protectionist economy. A tariff on one product would almost certainly affect other areas of our economy and short term gain would lead to huge long term job losses. So if we cannot resort to protectionism then how do we help to protect our employees? For one, I have a great amount of confidence in the ingenuity of our individuals and the ability of our businesses to compete with the increasingly huge economies like India and China but at the same time I think it would be irresponsible to just leave our workforce to face globalisation on their own. We need to invest, in education, in training and we need to make sure that workers know that Government is on their side and will support them to face new challenges. With India and China producing millions of new graduates every year, we have to ensure that our education system stays ahead of the game. We need to be producing the next generation of innovators who may go on to be the designers of new Rolls Royce Engines, and we also need to flexible enough to make sure we have the right training available so workers are prepared to compete in the international job market.
Bob Laxton MP - Derby North
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Posted by Jerry Hampshire, 13:45, Thu 26 April 2007: (Is this post abusive?) #
I too have lived in Derby pretty well all my life and I love it. I thought your piece was very good in summing up some of the area's successes and in its recognition of the inevitability of "globalisation" (its already happened in my opinion). The UK is an important part of the global economy at the moment. I think that many developed countries are going to become fringe players, and considerably poorer as a result. In my opinion Great Britain is too inventive and ingenious to let this happen.
However, this is, as long as, the government does not prevent it by its stifling legislation and taxation. Yes - education. Yes - training, but the government's track record is abysmal. It has institutionally bent statistics to "prove" good value. Please, lets get back to a good "rounded" education and honesty. Lets loose the shackles of taxation and over-legislation. For all our sakes.