Economy (North-East)

Iain Wright Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (David Miliband) on securing this important debate.

Like my right hon. Friend, I do not want to dwell on the negatives or the structural weaknesses. I want to focus on the huge assets, potential and opportunities that we have. Following on from my hon. Friend the Member for Blyth Valley (Mr Campbell), I do not think our best days are behind us. We have massive potential and we should not think of the area as some sort of manufacturing theme park. I agree with the CBI in its report, “The UK’s Growth Landscape”, when it stated that we should stop trying to level our regional disparities and maximise the economic potential in all. As the North East chamber of commerce states:

“The North East economy is not a problem that the UK needs to solve. Rather, it is an asset which it needs to develop further to produce a stronger return for UK plc.”

If modern industrial policy is about considering where we have comparative advantage and helping to maintain, enhance and maximise that competitiveness, the north-east is at the forefront of what a rebalanced national economy should be looking at. We can build on existing strengths, such as advanced manufacturing, higher education, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, automotives, renewables and the low-carbon economy in energy—particularly in offshore wind in my constituency and that of my hon. Friend, but also in carbon capture and storage.

I want to ask the Minister three quick questions. First, we have a chronic shortage of engineering skills. There is a real mismatch between the enormous potential we have in our economic area and the huge levels of youth unemployment. What are the Government doing to provide a greater co-ordination between schools, colleges, universities and businesses? As EngineeringUK said in its recent report on the state of engineering in the UK,

“If we don’t address supply issues, such as the numbers of students taking triple GCSE sciences, the numbers of Level 3 engineering apprenticeships, and the numbers of girls studying physics A level and engineering degrees, we risk stalling economic growth.”

That is very true in our region. What is the Minister going to do about it?

My second concern is procurement. I have mentioned before in the House—my hon. Friend picked up on this—the farce in relation to the largest offshore wind farm being created just off the coast of our region. We have fantastic engineering firms and great supply-chain opportunities. We have the steel to provide the fabrics for the turbines. However, most of the contracts are going to firms from Germany and Belgium. No other nation would have that. Given the massive potential that we have, we need an industrial strategy that involves Government working collaboratively with business. How will the Minister deal with the supply-chain and procurement issue?

The third area is co-ordination across Government. This issue is not confined to the north-east, but goes across Whitehall and industrial sectors. Business policy cannot reside solely in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Every Department should be assessing its activities according to the impact that they have on wealth creation and regional and national competiveness, whether it is the Department for Transport for aviation policy and airport capacity, the Department of Energy and Climate Change for opportunities in the energy industry or, as my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields said, the Home Office for visas for skilled workers. The other points with regard to this area are clarity and certainty. If we can have a combination of good long-term thinking to allow businesses the confidence to invest for the long term, the regional potential will be addressed.

Lord Heseltine recommends in his report a national growth strategy created in consultation with the business community and setting out a “progressive vision”—his words—for wealth creation over the long term. Will the Minister say whether that will be implemented?

We have plenty of potential in the north-east, but we need all partners—central and local government, business, education and the private and public sectors—to pull together to realise that potential and achieve a common and compelling strategic vision. It will be truly lamentable if we do not grasp the fantastic and often unparalleled opportunities on offer for our region in 2012. I hope that the Minister will set out how she will ensure that there is a concerted and co-ordinated Government effort to allow us to do that.