Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy: Departmental Spending — House of Commons, 2020-07-07
Topic: Macroeconomics
Alexander Paul Thomas Stafford (Conservative, Centre-right): The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is at the heart of our post-covid recovery. In my speech, I wish to focus on the repatriation of jobs to Britain, boosting our home-grown manufacturing, capitalising on our region’s rich industrial heritage and levelling up across our great country. Those are urgent priorities, which are integral to BEIS’s efforts to relaunch UK plc post covid and, in doing so, ensure the public are guaranteed the best return for the money that is entrusted to us Too many jobs have left Britain in the past decade or so, lured away by cheap labour and loose employment protection laws. Companies have left in their droves, while still benefiting from our consumer market. Germany, a country with a similar sized population and economy, has protected its industries and largely succeeded in encouraging German companies to retain their operations at home. It is our job to make the case for the UK as a hub of innovation with a highly educated, highly skilled and highly creative workforce. Companies that have moved jobs abroad have found that the grass is not always greener. In an increasingly complex global climate characterised by the slowdown of China and its tension with the west, and Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union, there is inherent value to business in the stability of our governance and the quality of our British labour market We must focus not on repatriating jobs to Britain, but on nourishing and supporting the enterprises that are here. This House knows only too well that many businesses are struggling to survive during the crisis and face many tough months ahead. Accordingly, I welcome the proposal to increase BEIS funding by £12 billion For us to emerge from the crisis, we must draw on the industry and ingenuity for which this country is famous. BEIS must support a renaissance in home-grown manufacturing, while promoting the UK as a world leader in certain fields. We have already achieved that in medical research and pharmaceuticals, and there is no reason why we cannot apply that success to sectors such as green energy and renewables, and in doing so steal a march on our rivals. We are already ahead of the game in technologies such as wind power, but we must act with speed and commitment to implement a hydrogen strategy to harness the full potential of this exciting zero-emission fuel of the future. Much of my work on the BEIS Committee revolves around such issues, and I welcome ideas from other Members to make them a reality I envision this industrial renaissance being spread out across a chain of innovative manufacturing hubs all across the UK. The Government’s levelling-up agenda is key to a strong economic recovery that works for every Briton and for every part of this nation. I speak from experience: my constituency of Rother Valley in South Yorkshire has a rich industrial heritage from many generations of coal mining and steel production, which is mirrored in constituencies across the north of England, the midlands and other parts of the United Kingdom. Such areas have been neglected and unemployment has soared. Now is the time for BEIS to utilise the manufacturing knowledge and skills possessed by locals in these areas and repurpose it for the industries of the future. This transformative action would provide high-quality jobs to those left-behind areas while firmly positioning the UK as a world leader in new sectors. We would reduce our reliance on overseas actors and be able to use British goods for British infrastructure projects As I draw my speech to a close, I underline the incredible opportunity that BEIS has to bring back jobs to Britain, restore struggling business to full health and open a new frontier for British manufacturing and industry. By reinventing areas with an industrial legacy and including them in our plans, we will not only recover from this dreadful virus, but usher in a new industrial revolution and a whole new era for a global Britain.