Economy: Manufacturing

Lord Bamford Excerpts

Thursday 3rd July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bamford (Con)]

My Lords, I also congratulate my noble friend Baroness Wilcox on securing this important debate on manufacturing, and I thank her for her excellent speech. This is a debate that really matters, as we consider our economic future in a fast-changing and more competitive world.

I begin by declaring an interest. I am an industrialist, and I am also an engineer. My family business, JCB, has 11 factories in the UK, employing more than 6,000 people. Perhaps I could respond rather quickly to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and say that I think that engineers are paid properly in Britain. As an illustration, last week we advertised on the net for engineering graduates with experience, and we got 1.3 million hits. They were from around the world but, all the same, being an engineer cannot be too bad.

My recent maiden speech touched on many of the themes which have formed part of this debate. Today I would like to focus first on what has been done to support UK manufacturing, and secondly on what still needs to be done. In 2012 I wrote a report on the state of UK manufacturing, which was written for policymakers of all political parties. It included recommendations to support our manufacturers. The key recommendation was to improve capital investment incentives. When I started my report, the annual investment allowance was a mere £25,000. I congratulate the Government on initially raising this to £250,000, and on raising it further in this year’s budget to £500,000. This is quite an increase, which will certainly help to unlock investment.

I also called on the Government to continue lowering corporation tax. I am pleased to say that the rate is now down from 28% in 2010 to 21% today, and there are plans to reduce it still further to 20% next year. This is a real boost to business confidence. Capital-intensive industries think long and hard before investing in equipment such as machine tools, which can cost many millions of pounds. Payback can take years or even decades, so the importance of such measures must not be underestimated. They make a real difference to manufacturers.

Research and development are our industry’s life-blood. Do noble Lords know that German companies submitted 47,000 patent applications in 2012, compared with just 15,000 in the UK? That is three times as many. Why is this the case? The answer is alarmingly simple. Germany places more value on research and development than we do. However, the Government are now on the right track. The recent patent box legislation means that manufacturers can now translate innovation into profit, which can then be put back into the business and so back into UK manufacturing. The report also called for more help for exporters. I am pleased that my noble friend Lord Livingston of Parkhead is realigning UK Export Finance, which many of you will of course know under its previous name of the ECGD. This will support many more manufacturers than before, both large and small.

All of these steps taken by the Government are vital. I am glad that they have had an immediate and positive effect but, as I said before, more needs to be done. Our overriding priority must be our young people. I therefore welcome the Government’s focus on apprenticeships, but what really matters to manufacturers is not the number but the quality of apprenticeships. We need meaningful apprenticeships, which offer young people the chance to develop world-beating skills. Such apprenticeships should last anything from three to five years, not six to 12 months, and culminate in a proper degree. Quality apprenticeships must become a vital part of our long-term manufacturing strategy.

It is for this reason that the long-term future of UK manufacturing requires real cross-party support. We also need to give absolute priority to continued investment in our young people up and down the land. I end by asking my noble friend the Minister if he could ensure that the quality of our apprenticeship programmes is given far more priority, to ensure a vital and competitive global future for our country.