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Mr. Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford, South): If we are to have a sensible debate about the future, we must remember the past. Why was manufacturing standing at 30 per cent. of gross domestic product in 1979 and down to less than 20 per cent. when the Conservative party left office?
Mr. Redwood: Gross domestic product went up massively and the service sector grew even more rapidly, therefore increasing its share of the action. However, I know the argument that will come from the Government. We have heard it many times, so let us do the routine quickly so we do not waste too much time on it. Yes, we got it wrong in the early 1990s. Yes, the Labour party fully supported the actions we then took. Yes, we have apologised. That is not the point of today's debate. There has been a general election since then, and many things have changed.
The new leadership of the Conservative party wants to look to the future and offer heartfelt advice, based on our successes and our mistakes during our period in office. I hope that that means that the Secretary of State can now ditch most of his speech and tell us about the present situation--in which manufacturing is suffering--and the actions that he may take with his right hon. Friends to make things better for manufacturing.
Yesterday was just another day in the sorry progress of manufacturing under the Government. ICI closed aworks in Billingham. Cooper's tools transferred its
manufacturing to Germany and to Mexico from that important plant in Washington new town in the north-east. I hope that the Secretary of State understood that--the company closed the plant down not because of a worldwide shortage in demand but because it thought that it was cheaper to make things in Germany.
Mr. Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley):
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the north-east. In my constituency, Wilkinson Sword, the razor blade manufacturer--an American company--closed down entirely and invested in a company in Germany. When I asked the company why, I was told that it had nothing to do with the pound or with interest rates. The company said that it was cheaper to sack British workers than German workers.
Mr. Redwood:
I would be surprised if that were the only explanation of the company's actions. Why would it want to sack the British workers? A company does not sack workers because it is cheaper to sack them here than somewhere else; it does so because it can no longer make money in the market concerned and in this country and thinks that it can benefit its business by transferring the work elsewhere.
If the hon. Gentleman is so worried about that factor, he should urge his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to do something about it. I do not agree with him about why Wilkinson Sword decided to pull out. It decided to pull out of the north-east, like many other firms that have done exactly the same in recent weeks and months, because the Government have made it too dear for manufacturers to make things in Britain and that area is suffering as a result--[Interruption.] Labour Members seem to deny that. Are they forgetting that Siemens has reduced its work force by 1,100 and cancelled a major plant and investment in the north-east? Three hundred and fifty jobs have gone from Wilkinson Sword, 600 at the Vickers tank factory, 2,000 at Claremont Garments, 500 at the British Oxygen Company, 730 at BASF and 660 at Grove Cranes. I have here a long list of job losses in the north-east since June, which I will not bore the House by reading. However, every one represents an industrial tragedy and a series of family tragedies for the people tied up in it. It is about time that the Government woke up to what is going on in the backyard of the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, in his constituency of Hartlepool.
Helen Jones (Warrington, North):
If, as the right hon. Gentleman says, every job lost is a tragedy, will he explain why, when he was in the previous Government, he allowed 8,000 manufacturing jobs to go from my area and never said one word about it?
Mr. Redwood:
I never thought that the loss of manufacturing jobs was a good thing. The hon. Lady does not know what I was saying within the Government when we were facing those problems. We were governed by collective responsibility and, as I have said, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has acknowledged on behalf of the party that mistakes were made in the early 1990s. The fact that such mistakes have been made should
Mr. Ian Bruce (South Dorset):
We need to start looking forward, but let us try to strike a balance. The last two factories in which I worked have now been closed. The first closed in 1975, when I had the painful job of working with the people who were being made redundant to help them find other jobs. Before then, I had worked at a factory in the borders of Scotland that produced printed circuits. The Government have now ensured that that factory has to make all its workers in Selkirk and Galashiels redundant, but the Government's only comment is that we need more productivity. They do not understand, so they should stop sneering.
Mr. Redwood:
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. Our sadness is that fine jobs are going and fine factories are closing--factories that we fought to get in this country or that decided to locate and grow here because they liked the economic policies that were being pursued. So much of that good legacy has been dissipated in 18 short months under this Administration.
Meanwhile, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry strolls on the Copacabana in Rio, plays courtier to the Prince of Wales, opens a motor show early to suit his personal and social convenience and turns a blind eye to the true problems of British business. We hear him in blunder after blunder, saying that he is no fan of greasy overalls or of horny-handed toilers in industry. As one who has never worked in industry, he obviously finds it difficult to understand how one makes things and the sort of background that one needs to do so profitably and to sell them abroad.
The right hon. Gentleman has become the Minister for manufacturing recession and the Minister for factory closures. He still thinks that he can spin enough to spin business out of trouble, but the more he spins with the odd piece of good news, the more ridiculous he looks and the more interest there is throughout the country in gloomy survey after gloomy survey and closure after closure.
Ms Helen Southworth (Warrington, South):
Has the right hon. Gentleman spoken recently to the Chemical Industries Association Ltd? Three of its members are located in my constituency. When I spoke to the chief executive last night, he expressed serious concern that the Opposition were talking down the economy and the industry. He said that he was having to make considerable efforts to counteract the effects of that talking down, which is damaging his markets.
Mr. Redwood:
It is a case of the Government doing down the chemical industry, not of the Opposition talking it down. My colleagues and I have been scrupulously careful never to talk us into a recession. Whenever I have been invited by broadcasters to go that bit further and predict an overall recession here, I have said that I do not wish to do so because I have no wish to make things worse than they already are.
It defies both logic and evidence, however, to say that there are no problems in manufacturing industry. I hope that the hon. Lady reads the surveys. I hope that she has
read the profit and loss figures being reported. I hope that she has read all the news of closures and redundancies. If she has read and understood any of that, she will realise that we are not talking industry into problems. The problems are real, and they are immediate. It is up to the Government to change their policies before they do even more damage.
Mr. John Randall (Uxbridge):
Does my right hon. Friend agree that not just manufacturing is affected? The retail trade, in which I have an interest, is also being hit. We do not want to talk down the economy, but one of the first things that one learns in business is to identify a problem, admit to it and deal with it. The Government singularly fail to do that.
Mr. Redwood:
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I hope that the debate will persuade the Government to recognise, even at this late hour, that there is a problem. We are not making it up. The Confederation of British Industry, the other big business institutes and companies up and down the country share that view. One need only read Ceefax or the financial pages day after day to see how serious the problems are.
Mr. Christopher Gill (Ludlow):
It may help my right hon. Friend to know of some headlines in the Shropshire Star: in September, "County dole figures show a sharp rise" and, in October, "300 workers take pay cut". The latter story noted:
"More than 300 workers at a Shropshire company are to take a pay cut to save their jobs."
A week later, the front-page headline was "Rover crisis hits county". The difficulties are real. There is no use the Government pretending that there is no crisis. The crisis is here, and it is affecting people's jobs in Shropshire.
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