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Manufacturing Investment
2. Mr. Connarty: To ask the President of the Board of Trade when he last met the Engineering Employers Federation to discuss manufacturing investment. [15022]
The Minister for Small Business, Industry and Energy (Mr. Richard Page): Ministers at the DTI have frequent contact with the EEF to discuss a wide range of issues, including investment.
Mr. Connarty: Does the Minister accept that the figures for the last quarter of 1996 published by the EEF show that investment in manufacturing industries was 16 per cent. lower than for the same quarter of 1995? Does he accept that we have still not returned to the investment figures for 1989 and 1990? Does he agree that
the Government have failed manufacturing and left it weak, undernourished and starved of adequate incentives for investment?
Mr. Page: I wish that the hon. Gentleman would give a fuller picture. Why does he not say that the EEF expects record sales in 1997? Why does he not say that fixed investment, which is the key source of demand for engineering products, will rise by some 5 per cent? Why does he not quote the Confederation of British Industry, which says that manufacturing investment will rise by 8 per cent. this year and next? That is good news.
Mr. Sykes: What does my hon. Friend think will happen to manufacturing investment if the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) ever has the reins of power? What does he think will happen to unemployment? Does he agree that we shall endure the agonising unemployment levels that are now splitting Germany apart? The right hon. Gentleman says that he will never be isolated in Europe; the German Chancellor will have him for breakfast.
Mr. Page: My hon. Friend is right. We have only to consider the fact that manufacturing employment in this country has increased by 130,000 since the end of 1993, whereas unemployment in Germany now stands at 4.6 million. It is obvious which Government have the right policies.
Dr. Howells: Does the Minister concede the fact that the skills shortages currently afflicting manufacturing industry in many areas of the country are a great restraint on investment in the future, and on any confidence that the manufacturing sector may have? When will he do something about that? Is it not a crime, given that so many young people who now languish on the dole could do with those skills and the appropriate education to staff up our manufacturing sector? When will the Minister do something to sort out that bunch of under-performers in the TECs and training centres in our colleges, who swap acronyms, jargon and conferences instead of getting on with the job of pumping some energy and motivation into job training and creation?
Mr. Page: Far be it from me partially to agree with the hon. Gentleman--but I do. He happens to have omitted the fact that our manufacturing productivity has risen by 80 per cent. since 1979, and is going very much in the right direction. I agree, however, that we need engineering skills if we are to drive the country forward more effectively, which is why I am glad that in 1994 we launched the Action for Engineering initiative, which has several facets, one of which is to encourage the development of engineers and the spread of best practice. Add to that our encouragement of modern apprenticeships, and I think that we are doing the right things to reduce the skills gap that the hon. Gentleman correctly identified.
Mr. Quentin Davies: How can placing a new discriminatory tax on any firm or sector have any consequence other than to depress investment in that firm or sector? Would not a windfall tax inevitably, as night follows day, reduce investment in the successful British
utilities that it would attack, thereby reducing those companies' growth prospects and capacity for wealth creation and employment generation in the future?
Mr. Page: My hon. Friend is right. Since privatisation, BT has invested £29 billion. A windfall tax would not help that investment programme, but it would have an impact on shareholders, and eventually on prices and on the country's competitiveness.
Regional Support
3. Mr. Campbell-Savours: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what representations he has received from organisations in the northern and north-west regions on the levels of support available to help industry. [15024]
The Minister for Industry (Mr. Greg Knight): I and other DTI Ministers regularly receive representations from organisations about the level of support available to help industry, including that in the northern and north-west regions.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: What is the point of maintaining a regime of regional assistance to draw manufacturing industry from all over the world to set up new plant in areas such as west Cumbria when the Foreign Office, in the form of the Foreign Secretary, is saying that Britain should not enter a single currency, thus undermining the strategy of confidence-building designed to attract industry to the United Kingdom? Surely there is an inconsistency at the heart of government. Why do Ministers not get their act together, so as to avoid undermining the strategy on which the areas that many of us represent are utterly reliant?
Mr. Knight: In January 1996, unemployment in the hon. Gentleman's area was 11.5 per cent. This year it is 10.4 per cent.--
Mr. Campbell-Savours: I did not ask about that.
Mr. Knight: I thought that the hon. Gentleman was about to stand up and welcome the fall in unemployment, which was caused partly by the success of the regional selective assistance scheme. What would damage British industry and destroy British jobs is implementation of the social chapter and the minimum wage.
Science Base
4. Mr. Evennett: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what measures his Department is taking to promote the United Kingdom's science base. [15025]
The Minister for Science and Technology (Mr. Ian Taylor): The science budget has risen by 17 per cent. in real terms since 1986-87. My Department has a vigorous programme to promote the understanding of science and an appreciation of the importance of the science base in national competitiveness and quality of life. Key activities at the moment are the Year of Engineering Success and the next National Week of Science, starting on 14 March.
Mr. Evennett: I congratulate my hon. Friend on maintaining the science budget for the forthcoming year,
despite the restraints on public expenditure, and on his work to promote science throughout the country. Has he any figures or evidence to show how well science is being taught and what developments are being made in our universities?
Mr. Taylor: The teaching of science in our universities is crucial, and I have been heartened by the number of universities that I have visited that have demonstrated that teaching is alive and well and that the concept of scholarship is very much to the fore. We are probably the most cost-effective university research community in the world: 1 per cent. of the world's population producing 6 per cent. of the world's scientific research output, 8 per cent. of its publications and 9 per cent. of its citations.
Mr. Ingram: The Minister's facts are interesting, but they fly in the face of reality. How does he answer the criticisms of companies such as SmithKline Beecham, which pointed out in a letter to me today that the United Kingdom is the only major Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development country that is showing a fall in total research and development spend as a percentage of gross domestic product? Who should we believe is telling the truth: companies such as SmithKline Beecham, or the Minister?
Mr. Taylor: I do not think that there is any doubt that I am telling the truth, because I am speaking in the House and giving the figures. I see that Opposition Members are kindly nodding in agreement with that statement. I would never criticise SmithKline Beecham, which is an important company in this country, but there are clearly differences of emphasis.
I have talked to George Poste, the head of research at SmithKline Beecham, who acknowledges some of the difficulties that the company faces in ensuring that even its internal researchers keep up with the equipment demands faced by the pharmaceutical industry. It is inevitable that universities will face similar equipment demands. That is precisely why we targeted our research equipment exercise during the past year. We intend to do that again, bringing in £50 million this year, closely targeted on our best research universities, and SmithKline Beecham has been making a positive input into both the formulation and the delivery of those policies.
Mr. Key:
Does my hon. Friend agree that the science base in this country, in both the private and the public sector, is thriving, taking on the world, and beating it? Is he aware of the great success of the special health authority, the centre for applied microbiology and research at Porton Down, which in its new incarnation is taking on American companies and is second to none as an international operator in the field in which it dominates a large slice of world action?
Mr. Taylor:
I am happy to confirm my hon. Friend's comments, especially about microbiology. The importance of the microtechnologies in this country, including nanotechnology, which is of an order of dimension smaller, is well evidenced by the support that we give. A BBC 2 programme the other week gave the wrong figures: we have spent £135 million on nanotechnology in the past five years, and this year alone
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