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Opposition Day

[10th Allotted Day]

UK Manufacturing and Enterprise

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Madam Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister. She has also decided that there should be a 10-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches.

4.24 pm

Mrs. Angela Browning (Tiverton and Honiton): I beg to move,

That this House condemns the Government for failing to encourage an enterprise economy, for reducing the UK's competitiveness and burdening all sectors of business with extra regulatory costs and taxation and for adding to the pressure on manufacturing, resulting in many sectors relocating outside the UK; demands that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry outlines the Government's strategy for manufacturing as a matter of urgency, so that industry can plan for the future; and calls upon the Government to commit itself to reduce the overall cost of tax and regulation to business without delay, allowing UK firms to compete in the global market place and to retain a UK manufacturing base.

When new Labour came to office in May 1997, the Government inherited an economy in which the Conservatives had reformed our trade unions. We had created an enterprise economy in which non-wage labour costs were some of the lowest in Europe and in which the UK attracted one third of all inward investment into the European Union, creating 850,000 jobs. In 1995, the president of Philips said:

For manufacturing, Britain is the most competitive country in Europe today.

In October of the same year, the chairman of BMW said:

Great Britain is currently the most attractive economy in Europe for producing cars.

Since 1997, under new Labour, Britain has dropped from fourth to eighth in the world competitiveness league. Today's debate is an opportunity to examine what has changed and gives the Secretary of State a chance to spell out his Government's policy on competition, manufacturing and business so that companies can plan for the future--something that they are currently having great difficulty with.

Ever since 1997, when the "under new management" sign appeared above the door of the Department of Trade and Industry, one thing has become apparent: although they have learned the language of business, there is precious little business experience in the Cabinet. In the three offices of state that should be making Britain more competitive there is one non-practising barrister, one former politics lecturer turned journalist and one polytechnic law lecturer--the three wise monkeys who even now cannot see or hear what is happening to British industry. They lecture and hector people who every day have to plan, take decisions, invest money and create jobs.

Only today, we read in the Financial Times that in his speech to the CBI tonight, the Prime Minister will signal to business leaders that the Government have broader priorities than appeasing their growing ranks of critics in

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the business community. The Secretary of State for Defence was clearly telling the truth when he told The Guardian last month that

metal bashing is no longer a vital national asset

That was a clear message for the Labour heartlands.

The Government's £30 billion of extra taxes and £10 billion of extra regulatory costs have started to impact on British businesses, but apparently the Government have broader priorities. In other words, they have departed from the field of battle and no longer see themselves as champions of British competitiveness. The Secretary of State has failed to be the sponsoring Minister at the heart of Government on behalf of business. The taxes and burdens imposed by the Government cover areas such as the climate change tax, IR35, employment relations, industrial works councils, increased fuel charges, workplace parking, congestion charges, end-of-life vehicles, employment agencies, sub-post offices, residential care homes--the list goes on. No sector has been able to rely on the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to put its case at the heart of Government. His job, as he sees it from the vantage point of a polytechnic lecturer, is to agree to all the new burdens. It is bad enough that he is constantly rolled over by the Treasury, but to acquiesce to policies that emanate from that seething mass of chaos that is the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions gives the impression that he has been dumped by his colleagues. If he is not careful, he could end up as the Labour candidate for mayor of Tyneside.

Mr. Dale Campbell-Savours (Workington): How is it, then, that unemployment in the United Kingdom is the lowest in western Europe as a percentage of population?

Mrs. Browning: Because of the legacy that the Government inherited. One does not need to be able to work out seven times eight to work out those statistics.

Mr. Peter Luff (Mid-Worcestershire): I am sure that my hon. Friend would wish to remind the hon. Gentleman that 5 per cent. of all manufacturing jobs were lost in the west midlands last year alone.

Mrs. Browning: Indeed. I shall come shortly to the pressures that manufacturing businesses are under and why they are struggling to maintain their competitiveness in world markets.

Mr. Bruce Grocott (Telford) rose--

Mrs. Browning: I am delighted to give way to the Prime Minister's Parliamentary Private Secretary.

Mr. Grocott: The hon. Lady implies that Opposition Members possess tremendous business acumen, so could she remind the House of the practical business proposals that she put forward to solve the Rover crisis?

Mrs. Browning: I am happy to answer that question from another polytechnic lecturer. I have said before in the House that, before the Rover crisis broke, a Conservative Member of the European Parliament and

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former director of Rover, Mr. Malcolm Harbour, wrote--with my consent as shadow Secretary of State--to the Secretary of State to offer the support of the Conservative party in negotiations with the Commissioner in the seemingly endless battle to secure money from Europe. However, the commitment of the Conservatives to try to help the Secretary of State--he shakes his head, but it is true and he has seen the letter--was made more difficult because he did not think that he had a problem with Rover until the news broke. Our commitment to trying to help Rover was clearly on the record of this House.

Business will find a different approach from the Conservative Government after the next election.

Several hon. Members rose--

Mrs. Browning: I shall give way in a moment, but I first wish to explain to business why it can live in some hope that a Conservative Government will change the mess and chaos. We will reduce the costs to business over the lifetime of a Parliament, because the costs of the regulatory impositions put on business by this Government must be cut. We will guarantee that we will report progress to Parliament, so that business will feel that burden lifting. All that business feels at the moment is regulation after regulation and tax after tax--all imposed at the cutting edge of what makes a business competitive. We will guarantee a low-tax, low-regulated economy, and we will ensure that UK companies are not put at a competitive disadvantage to other EU countries.

Mr. Jim Cunningham (Coventry, South): While many people at Rover will appreciate what the hon. Lady tried to do, she did not answer the original question. Leaving aside the European grant, what solution did you put forward to solve the Rover crisis?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have no solutions to such matters.

Mrs. Browning: The hon. Gentleman asks what solution we would have put forward. The Secretary of State held a press conference to take the credit for a proposal that he suggested ensured the long-term future of Rover, but had Conservative Ministers brokered that deal, we would not have assumed that we had concluded the negotiations. That will be the difference in the calibre of people who will hold office in a Conservative Government, compared with the people in this Administration who have never run any commercial operation, have never risked anything, and have seemingly never even engaged in a negotiation. As any business man knows--and the hon. Gentleman has some experience in that area--a deal is not deal until it is delivered. Indeed, I would say that a deal is not a deal until it is paid for.

The Secretary of State took the credit and then took his eye off the ball and did not follow through. In business, as in Government, following through is critical. I do not suggest that a Conservative Government would have or could have prevented any company--

Mr. Grocott: They were not saying that at the time.

Mrs. Browning: Yes we were. We live in the real world. The people who read and write about things may

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not know this, but those of us who have had 20 years experience in business--as I have, including 10 years with a British manufacturer--know that nobody should take credit for negotiating a deal until they know that they can follow through and deliver on it. That will be the difference that business can expect from a Conservative Government, compared with the bunch of people in this Government who talk about things they have never actually done.

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