Industrial Strategy — House of Commons, 2016-10-20
Topic: Macroeconomics
Richard Quentin Fuller (Conservative, Centre-right): I know that there is little chance of that George Brown, the noble Lord Heseltine, the noble Lord Mandelson, Vince Cable—to this hallowed series of greats we should now add the names of the Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation and the Secretary of State as the people who will champion industrial strategy for our country. There are no two better minds in this House that we could apply to the task, but my concern is that we are sending our best brains in pursuit of a nonsense As the hon. Member for Aberdeen North has just said, we do not know what industrial strategy is—no one has defined it. When I heard earlier that the Minister had not yet published what the industrial strategy was, I raised my hands in prayer. As long as the Government continue not to define their industrial strategy, they will keep themselves out of a great deal of trouble. As soon as they define it, people will start to disagree with them, because the phrase "industrial strategy" is a wonderful grab bag of good ideas. There are loads of ideas in industrial strategy, every single one of them good. Ne’er a one is a bad idea, because a bad idea will not be allowed into the industrial strategy. In industrial strategy, all are winners, because no industrial strategy will pick a loser. The Minister will always say yes, because with an industrial strategy, one can never say no I hope that the Minister will maintain his rather reticent approach to industrial strategy so that he can continue to be friends with all Members across the Chamber and not upset anyone. In the phrase "industrial strategy" it is, first of all, hard for him to define industry. Is financial services an industry? The word "industry", as my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington conjured up in his opening speech, is about manufacturing. What is strategy? Strategy is the pursuit of a goal, but what is the goal for an entire economy and, if there is a goal, how on earth is it the Government’s role to tell everyone what it is? That went out in the 1940s and ’50s with Soviet planning. I know that my friend the Minister has no interest in returning to those days, but unfortunately he may unwittingly, in his endeavours, encourage Opposition Members to think that the good old days of centralised socialism are back. He would not wish to be a fellow traveller on that journey to despair Industrial strategy, we are told, is positive because it enables us to think about the long term, but that is what shareholders do. We think about the news cycle and we think about the election cycle. We have to make sure that, in five years, we are re-elected. When we talk about consensus in other countries, we have to recognise that consensus in this country is built differently; it comes from the competition of ideas, and from one set of new ideas being subsequently accepted by the opposing party. The promotion by the Conservative party under Margaret Thatcher of a reduction in the power of trade unions and a liberalisation of markets was accepted by the subsequent Labour Government. The Labour Government’s introduction of the national minimum wage and regulation against discrimination in the workplace was accepted by the coalition Government. That is how we build consensus, and that is not compatible with the expectation that one can set an industrial strategy that stands for all time. The Minister will be here, I am sure, until he gets promoted, but at some stage—perhaps in 20 years’ time—the Opposition will get ready to take over power, at which point the long-term plan may be picked apart To be slightly more helpful to the Minister, I will point to some areas that he and his colleagues might like to look at. Although I would not call these things an industrial strategy, they might be good ideas. If we are to be successful, as my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr Mak) mentioned, we have to promote innovation. Innovation is promoted by lowering taxes, ensuring that our markets are flexible, and looking carefully at regulatory sunsets to ensure that incumbents cannot use regulation to defend themselves against insurgents. Corporate governance also needs to be looked at seriously, as we discussed in the previous debate I commend my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne) for his productivity plan, not because it was about projects, but because it for the first time concentrated on what the Government can do regarding strategy, which is the implementation of things that are helpful, particularly for infrastructure. We need only look at the difficulties with the expansion of airport capacity in the south-east to see that we are very poor at implementing the decisions we make. I commend the productivity plan to the Minister for him to look at again The Prime Minister has rightly said that the United Kingdom is at the forefront of free trade. That is something on which the Minister and I clearly agree. Free trade is what the United Kingdom does best. We need to make sure we have appropriate protection against dumping, but we also need to be on the front foot in lowering our tariffs We are leaving the European Union, which is a major event for the whole of our economy. I understand that the Government want to form a view on that and know what actions they should take in the short term to assist us through this transition to a better and stronger future. However, each of these are things that the Government would do anyway. We do not need a Department for industrial strategy to do them; we do not need such a Department to improve our skills. We do not need one to change the law regarding the governance of our boards, although I agree with the hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) that the Government should do that. We do not need the phrase "industrial strategy". I am worried for the Minister in that, as he pursues it, he will set the Government up for a fall. I, for one, want to support the Government in their endeavours so that that does not happen.