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We are intent on giving British industry what it needs to thrive. We have set tough rules on spending and borrowing to ensure low inflation and to strengthen the economy, so that interest rates can be kept as low as possible. We are putting in place a medium-growth strategy, which encourages long-term investment and sustainable growth--not short-term growth, but sustainable growth for the long term.
We have rightly transferred the task of setting interest rates to the Bank of England. The Tories used interest rates as a cosmetic tool to hide their failure. We are making a major monetary activity more effective, open and accountable, and free from short-term Tory manipulation. Even the suggestion that the Tories may take back ownership of that important monetary policy dismays me, and would probably dismay most of British industry.
The Labour Government recognise that investment in training and in a skilled, flexible work force is crucial to Britain's future competitiveness. The Tories abandoned the young and those people with considerable skills who were forced into redundancy. The previous Administration had an abysmal record. I had the unfortunate pleasure of working in the docks, and I echo the sentiments of my hon. Friends. You were responsible
for the wholesale closing of industries, and you did not give a damn what happened to those communities as a consequence.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. The hon. Lady must use the correct parliamentary language.
Mrs. Curtis-Thomas:
My apologies, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Mr. Brady:
Will the hon. Lady give way?
Britain's work force have fewer skills than those of our major competitors. You may not like--my apologies, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. I repeat that the hon. Lady must use the correct parliamentary language.
Mrs. Curtis-Thomas:
The Opposition may not like to hear these facts, but they are true. Britain's work force have fewer skills than those of our major competitors. Less than half our work force are qualified to NVQ level 2 or above. According to the 1996 world competitiveness report, Britain has fallen from 42nd to 48th in the international education league. Youth training has failed more than half its trainees, many of whom have left within a few weeks of starting their training schemes.
Mr. Hayes:
Will the hon. Lady give way?
Mrs. Curtis-Thomas:
When I have finished these points.
What has the Labour party done to address those issues? Contrary to what Opposition Members have said, the new deal is giving young people the first chance they have had to participate in the workplace. I am delighted that that programme is now being extended to older workers and to lone parents, who are vital contributors to the economy and were ignored by Tory Administrations.
Improvements to and extension of the Investors in People programme has encouraged more employers, especially smaller firms, to train their work force. We have seen the biggest ever investment in the research budget, which is vital for investors and for the academic infrastructure.
Mr. Bercow:
Will the hon. Lady give way?
Mrs. Curtis-Thomas:
After I have finished this point.
That investment of £1.4 billion over three years includes a substantial contribution from Wellcome, and is one of the most significant private-public sector partnerships that this country has ever seen.
Mr. Hayes:
Will the hon. Lady give way?
Mrs. Curtis-Thomas:
When I have finished.
A radical numeracy and literacy drive has ensured that children in primary schools today will have the skills and ability to be the wealth generators of tomorrow. Industry and manufacturing were totally neglected by the Tories,
but they are embraced by the Labour Government. We are not merely paying them lip service; we are introducing practical measures to enable them to survive and thrive.
Mr. Hayes:
I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. I do not want to interrupt her flow, although perhaps that is not quite the right word to describe it. Before coming to the House, she spent most of her time in higher education.
Mrs. Curtis-Thomas
indicated dissent.
Mr. Hayes:
The record suggests that she spent more time in higher education than in business.
Mr. Hayes:
Perhaps the record is wrong. The hon. Lady may acknowledge that those of us who have spent some time in business understand the importance of overheads. What estimate has she made of the damaging effect of overheads as a result of the increasing bureaucracy and regulation imposed by the Government? Drawing on her enormous business experience, what estimate has she made of the effect that that will have on employment and jobs?
Mrs. Curtis-Thomas:
I have spent most of my working life in industry, in both the private and the public sectors. A small part of my working life was in the academic environment.
On overheads, I enjoyed--if "enjoyed" is the right word--the over-zealous activity of the Tory Administration, who produced the largest set of overheads that industry has ever seen.
Mr. Bercow:
Will the hon. Lady tell the House why the definition of a small firm that the Government use for the purposes of the late payment of commercial debt differs from the definition that they deploy for trade union recognition?
Mrs. Curtis-Thomas:
I shall allow the Minister to answer that interesting question on my behalf.
Mr. Tim Boswell (Daventry):
It has been useful for the House to debate these serious matters, which bear on the future of Britain as an industrial nation. They directly influence the mechanisms by which wealth is created before it can be spent on the social agenda of any of us. We need to create the wealth before we can spend it.
I shall make a few points clear at the start. First, Opposition Members want Britain to succeed as a modern industrial country. We have no intention of selling British industry short. Given my experience, and given the fact that my constituency contains Silverstone and the greater part, or a significant part, of the Grand Prix and formula one industry, I know what engineering excellence can amount to, and I realise how vital it is to the preservation and, indeed, creation of jobs. I recognise the central importance of manufacturing industry, alongside the service industries.
Equally--as long as there is proper consultation, along with correct and sensitive treatment of any redundancies derived from those closures--there need be no suggestion from Opposition Members that factory closures are always and ipso facto wrong. It might be entirely proper to close a factory in order to rationalise production and to increase productivity, which is the objective--albeit not always perfectly expressed--of the McKinsey report and, I think, of all who have spoken today. It may even be sensible to replace one factory with another, on the same site or elsewhere, to expand production or the product range. I am fond of saying, as a throwaway line, that any Member of Parliament can go along and open a factory; the really interesting task is opening a factory extension, or a new facility replacing an old one.
Decisions such as those are the daily responsibility of boards of management and business people. Given the Secretary of State's sneering responses to the reasonable comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) about productivity, it is possible that he is not the one who has experience of making such decisions; it may even be that he is the one who should be sharpening up his act. In view of the stress that he and others put on inward investment, however--rightly so, and we have a good record in that respect--let us not forget that there is no law of nature requiring foreign investors and their boards to come to this country. There is worrying evidence that that welcome tendency of recent years may be turning down. Nevertheless, we want boards based abroad, and overseas investors, to see Britain as a continuing base for their investment.
Secondly, we recognise that overseas economic conditions, disturbing as they are at present, are a vital part of the scene. They cannot be wished away, however much any of us would like that. I still find it strange that the Government can entertain the thesis that they have abolished boom and bust, while at the same time expressing worry about economic conditions. Perhaps they can explain how the two parts of that conundrum can be reconciled.
Mr. Bercow:
In his characteristically polite and understated fashion, my hon. Friend suggested that it might be the Secretary of State who needed to sharpen up his act. Is his view not reinforced by the fact that, only last week, the Secretary of State said that the Government had no plans or proposals to lift restrictions on Japanese car imports? Two days earlier, in his pre-Budget statement, the Chancellor had announced precisely that.
Mr. Boswell:
I was given a report to that effect, and I did not think much of the Secretary of State's reported contribution; but, if we are educating the right hon. Gentleman, that is an important part of our function.
Opposition Members do not feel that a one-sided caricature of our record in office over 18 years is a sufficient response from the Secretary of State and Her Majesty's Government to serious, current, pressing issues. Government Back Benchers made interesting comments. In one contribution in particular, there was clear evidence--given the vehemence of the attack on the outgoing Government--of real concern about the Government's ability to deliver their objectives, however commendable those objectives were considered to be.
Let me put something on the record. I was particularly interested by a comment from the head of McKinsey, Mr. Bill Lewis, which was reported in The Birmingham Post on 30 October. He conceded that Britain
It is clear to us, as we open our newspapers, that the industrial casualty list is lengthening day by day, with news of further closures and job losses that were well set out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham and others. My constituency is poised between the--already known--major cuts at Barclaycard in Northampton, and the possibility of up to 5,000 job losses at Rover in the west midlands, referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Miss Kirkbride) in a worthy contribution. There is also the likely spin-off affecting components suppliers and the service industries. Only today, someone mentioned a "multiplier estimate" that, for every job lost in manufacturing industry, 3.5 jobs could be lost in the economy as a whole.
The examples that I have cited make the interesting point that not all job losses are in manufacturing industry. The financial services industry is also haemorrhaging, and it is of equivalent importance. We are concerned about both sectors.
Notwithstanding the reported remarks of the Governor of the Bank of England, this is not solely a question of one hard-hit region, although the problem is concentrated in the north-east. In towns on the south coast, losses are reported at Guardian Royal Exchange in Eastbourne and Folkestone, and Philips is to close its kettle factory at Hastings. I believe that, at its peak, it employed only 800 people, but now there are to be 160 job losses.
6.28 pm
"had made great advances in the 1980s and early 1990s in deregulating its labour and capital markets and these were now every bit as competitive as those in the US."
I wonder who did that.
"The challenge now",
said Mr. Lewis,
"was to carry through the same sort of structural reforms in product markets".
That is a reasonable objective, and it is right that we should consider it.
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