Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
160-179)
MOTORSPORT INDUSTRY
ASSOCIATION, MOTOR
SPORTS ASSOCIATION
AND LOLA
GROUP, COVENTRY
UNIVERSITY
15 DECEMBER 2009
Q160 Mr Wright: Colin, you mentioned
earlier the MDUK, Motorsports Development UK, but it is not really
doing the job that the industry wanted and, as I understand it,
it is now defunct and finished as from this year. Was that the
right decision to take?
Mr Hilton: I personally believe
it was the right decision to close that operation down because
it was becoming, I would say, unviable from its overhead costs.
They ended up with nearly as many people as we have in the governing
body just issuing out these funds to various projects. I think
it needs looking at in a completely different way and we would
welcome the opportunity to work with Government in that way again,
but I think the structure would have to be different so that the
needs of the industry and the needs of the sport are actually
delivered rather than this strange concept which came out of MDUK.
Q161 Mr Wright: So are you suggesting
that there should be a successor organisation being formed?
Mr Hilton: No, no, I do not think
so. I think the industry and the sport are quite able, working
with the departments, whichever department it is, with ourselves,
DCMS and DBIS for industry, let us work directly and help those
departments direct funding where it should go.
Q162 Mr Wright: Because there is
a tinge of going back on what you said earlier because, quite
clearly, you have mentioned MDUK and the fact that the Government
was showing a direct interest by setting up MDUK at the time,
but now you are saying that it did not even serve the purpose
it was formed for because the wrong people were on the board,
there were too many people on there and it did not actually deliver.
Mr Hilton: I think the mechanism
was incorrect. I think the concept of investing in the sport and
the industry was correct, and we all contributed to that and we
all contributed to the strategy of where the needs were, but I
think the actual delivery mechanism was the problem.
Mr Aylett: May I add a comment
because to say I was the person involved in this is almost an
understatement. The original document that was written from the
industry was a strategy document in 2000 which led to the DTI
nationally saying, "We'll run a national scheme to help this
national cluster develop", and that was Brian Wilson. Then,
and I know this was through direct intervention at the highest
level, some folk went directly to other ministers and said, "This
would be wrong. We now need ..." and the decision was to
have a competitiveness panel which took a year or more to review
this idea. That competitiveness panel led to Motorsport Development
UK and we steadily drifted away from a national programme run
through a national governing body in the national interest to
deal with a national cluster. It was eventually handed to a region,
which happened, on that research you referred to earlier, to be
a region with only 15% of the economic activity. The neighbouring
region, SEEDA, had twice as much economic activity, but the national
programme was given to a region to handle. At the time a senior
civil servant said, "This is going to be an interesting experiment",
and it did prove to be interesting and, I have to say, a failure.
Unfortunately, the concept of a region taking a national programme,
first of all, there were the disputes between regions, but also
you lost and, if you look at the trail of the board, they thought
they were advising a national programme, but found they were driving
from Kent to Nottingham for meetings on a regular basis. I do
not blame EMDA at all, I do not blame the people who were given
the task, they were a region and they were leading it as best
they could to fulfil their regional strategy as opposed to their
national base. Scotland had nothing to do with it, Wales walked
away from it and, instead, here we were with a national industry
begging for support for a national sport just tied up in the delivery
mechanisms of regions and, I have to say, I support Colin. We
have in the last 18 months done all we can successfully to restore
our relationships with DBIS, née DTI, to great success,
with sensible dialogue on national issues, and we are beginning
to rebuild that relationship for a national cluster, so I think
it was, sadly for us as a small industry, an experiment that was
just flawed.
Q163 Mr Wright: You mentioned the
regions and we can go on to the regional development agencies.
Have the RDAs caused more problems to the industry in the past,
the fact there seems to be this element of competition between
the RDAs' role and UKTI's role and the RDAs playing more of an
inward investment role which was the domain of UKTI? Is there
a degree of hostility in the industry towards them?
Mr Aylett: I do not know whether
you deal with the RDAs, Mike.
Mr Dickison: We deal with Advantage
West Midlands and we have found that we have quite a good, close
working relationship with them and I would not say that there
is anything I would like to raise to say that there is a big problem
here. There have been various research initiatives going on and
we are currently midway through a £3 million R&D programme
for environmentally-improved vehicles. I do not think there is
anything that I can think of where I would say that there needs
to be some huge change.
Q164 Mr Wright: I think in the MIA's
evidence, Chris, you mention unhelpful competition between the
RDAs, and I think I am right in saying that Silverstone was split
between two RDAs because it straddled the border between the two.
Did that create problems or is that creating problems?
Mr Hilton: I think it caused more
complications than problems. I think the mechanism of getting
funding or trying to get funding from two caused the difficulties.
Mr Aylett: I do not know whether
Andrew has something to add, and I do not want to be coy, I just
want to make sure my friends are heard. Our difficulty is as a
national trade body dealing with a national cluster where the
suppliers never even know where an RDA begins and ends and nor
should they care. To try to deal with that on an economic growth
area is difficult. We work very closely with DBIS/DTI/DBERR and
we have consistently worked well with UK Trade & Investment
as a national industry. Bizarrely, as you raise UK Trade &
Investment, nationally based in Glasgow, we run national programmes.
We are often at a show that is being funded nationally by UKTI
and there is a regional UKTI activity going on of which we are
unaware, the customers, if you like, the international customers
were unaware, they do not understand why there would be an East
of England UKTI activity, and in fact it has become so complicated
that we just invite anybody with the card of UKTI to anything
that we do in the hope that they can work it out because it is
very, very complicated. If you are from one region and you strike
lucky, you can get an extra £500 to attend the show, meet
the chap from the East of England who on that particular show
did not get it, they meet on the plane, "Didn't you get the
£500?" "No, I'm in Huntingdon", and they say,
"Well, is that not AWM?" "I don't know where it
is", so, sadly to say and it may belittle my organisation,
we simply advise everyone to contact whoever has a card from UKTI
and try and gain some funding because it is beyond us to work
out, as a national trade body, how you can win the lottery region
by region. This is UKTI.
Q165 Mr Wright: Yes, I understand
that.
Mr Aylett: That was not what you
raised, but it is a great sadness because it is probably not the
most co-ordinated international effort and they are good people.
Everyone is motivated as well, but not the best.
Mr Hilton: Just to give you an
idea of what happens in other areas, this year we have introduced
an advanced apprenticeship scheme for young drivers and what we
try to do is ensure that they get education when they are enjoying
their sport so that they will come out with the equivalent of
three "A" levels while they are competing. We find ourselves
in a situation where it is very successful and we can go to 100
apprentices next year, but we can only actually get funding for
England. We can only fund those kids who are based in England,
but we are a UK governing body, so we have got to have separate
schemes for Scotland and Wales, and it is bonkers really.
Mr Manahan: I am so happy that
I am not the only one that is totally confused by the organisation
of these because I thought there must be something wrong with
me because I have not a clue what half of these people do.
Mr Aylett: You should know!
Mr Manahan: It is not that I do
not try, but I do not know if you guys ever remember Drop the
Dead Donkey, but I get approached by these agencies who speak
like Gus Hedges and you get these hands-on/hands-off interface
matrix units, and I have not a clue what any of them are trying
to deliver for us. It is bewildering, it is confusing, it is irrelevant,
and I am being generous! Like I said, the UKTI people are trying,
and anybody who comes to us with a UKTI specific hat on—I
even had a very relevant text from one of them first thing this
morning trying to help us to do some business overseas, they are
trying, but, I must admit, it is the agencies, the regional agencies,
which are the confusing aspect for me.
Mr Aylett: We are very keen in
motorsport on inward investment. We, and you can go back to my
first argument, we prosper by attracting inward investment. It
is a very courageous statement, but it has come through Professor
Porter of Harvard, that really strong global trading clusters
welcome international competition into their midst, so actually,
as a trade association, and I have spoken to many others, they
say, "We're amazed at how aggressively you go after the inward
investment" because there's protectionism, but our members
love it, absolutely love the inward investment. They are courageous
people, they want to bring these guys in because they know they
are the best and then they will gain from them, so we get a lot
of enquiries, as a trade body, for inward investment and then
we have this rich inward investment opportunity which I have to
pass onto UKTI. I know that there will be a national approach,
there will be a regional approach, there will then be a county
approach and there will be a local approach and, by the time this
poor Chinese company has been passed around this group, I am not
sure how it really helps, and I have many practical experiences
of the confusion that it conveys; all the goodwill intended, but
not the most professional approach to an inward investor.
Q166 Mr Clapham: If I could just
pick up an enormously important issue, Mr Aylett, you seem to
be saying, from the letter that Brian Wilson sent out, which seems
to hint at a national plan for the motorsport industry and the
clusters, in particular, that what we really require there is
to say that we need a plan that sort of transcends the regions
on the one hand, but at the same time the regions are to be involved
in implementing that plan to make sure that this sport is prosperous.
Mr Aylett: Yes, I must admit,
and I will let you have a copy of the letter, it is very eloquently
written actually and it kind of captures with some vision the
chaos that did actually arrive because it was taken, if you like,
to the next level and it became part of the regional problem.
He was saying that it is an industry-led, DTI national programme,
but it will engage on a regional basis as and where necessary.
Let me remind you, the date of 2002 was in the birthday period,
the honeymoon period of regions and this is how it should work
and, I have to say, that is probably true of MDUK when I sat with
senior civil servants. The way RDAs were going to operate was
still, "We presume this will work. We're looking for national
schemes to be led by certain regions", and I was intimately
involved in those conversations. Sadly, as a businessman, I was
able to say, "Are you sure? Are you not motivating these
people to compete with each other? Are they really going to be
able to stay outside?" "Yes, that's what we're going
to do" "Oh good, that's the view of the politicians",
but it did not work in practice. It may not be for other industries,
but ours is a good case to study. I know there is a report on
MDUK, I am close enough with DBIS to know that you have a report,
which has not yet come out, but there will be a report which you
can read and see how successful it has been in the view of the
industry, which is not that good, but I have to give you this
information to add to your knowledge.
Chairman: We welcome that, and we have
the Minister coming in after Christmas. I cannot remember when,
but we will be having him in.
Q167 Mr Wright: Just in respect of
the MDUK, I have just looked at the figures and the actual cost
of the MDUK was £11.5 million. It is quite clear, now it
is defunct, that that money has gone back into the Department's
coffers or perhaps the Treasury's. Would you suggest that perhaps
something else should go in its place because £11.5 million
is not a small sum?
Mr Aylett: To be honest with you,
after five years we regularly have meetings on what do we want
to do and the 100%, "Please stop. Please stop loving us in
this manner", really.
Q168 Mr Wright: It was that bad?
Mr Aylett: Yes, it was that bad.
It was, "Please stop". If we try and negotiate a little
bit, someone will say, "Let's build it again", so the
decision of our members, not Colin and myself, but our members
was, "Let's just stop. We'll do okay without the Government's
love and affection. We've appreciated it as best we can, but no
more". Now what we are saying, both of us, is that we would
love to re-engage on a national scheme that recognises the national
sport, the national industry and the importance of a national
cluster of sport and industry.
Q169 Mr Wright: Has there been an
indication that that is actually happening?
Mr Hilton: None whatsoever.
Q170 Mr Wright: So, since MDUK finished
in March of this year, there has been no discussion whatsoever
of what is going to replace your discussions or anything else
of that nature?
Mr Aylett: No. I will not bore
you with it, but I had Baroness Vadera's promise in March to deal
with it and she then said she would meet in June, and I was reminded
on the train this morning that we are now in December, so that
is the complacency of which we spoke.
Mr Hilton: I have not spoken to
anybody in MDUK for over two years.
Mr Aylett: Colin and I meet regularly,
as you can tell, and there was a period when we said, "Well,
I actually haven't heard from MDUK in over a year", and that
was the industry and the sport. They were claiming to spend £16
million and it turned out to be 11, but 16 was the illusory promise
that disappeared, and we were not in touch with them at all, not
slightly but not at all.
Q171 Chairman: That is a fairly unequivocal
answer you got there, Tony. Can I just ask about something else
for consultation and we have some questions which will involve
you, Mr Dickison, so do not worry, your moment in the sun will
come. Were you consulted about the establishment of the UK Composites
Centre actually as an industry because composites are very important
to you as well?
Mr Manahan: No, we were not.
Q172 Chairman: Because you made a
very powerful exposition earlier on of the challenge we face from
other places to our competitors, and composites are hugely important
for aerospace and for motorsport. We now have the announcement
of the Composites Centre at Bristol, which personally I am very
happy about, I think it is the right outcome, but no consultation?
Mr Manahan: We have not been consulted
on it. The first I saw was reading about it relatively recently.
It certainly seems to have had a lot of input from the tier ones,
as I call them, in the aerospace side of the industry, the Airbuses,
the GKNs, people like that. I welcome the concept of it, but I
am slightly fearful of what it might mean for our business. I
would like to know a lot more about it and I would be very happy
to engage with it in a way that I am not threatened by it.
Q173 Chairman: If you want to suggest
some questions that we might ask the Minister on this when he
comes on 26 January, I would be happy to ask them for you, Mr
Manahan.
Mr Manahan: That would be great,
thank you.
Mr Aylett: Mr Chairman, may I
just say, you are reading my report. I am a little concerned as
to why this industry is not involved in some of these consultations.
Q174 Chairman: Exactly.
Mr Aylett: It is a very strange
process. The Technology Strategy Board, Iain Gray, is in another
room here today, we have very cordial relations and they do enjoy
motorsport and they enjoy talking about it, but they find it very
difficult or it is very rare, they do not engage as if we are
an industry, and that is the Technology Strategy Board—
Q175 Chairman: Well, we heard, when
we were in Silverstone, that the innovations in composite use
in motorsport were happening faster, to go back to the evidence,
and were happening more regularly than they are in aerospace.
Mr Aylett: They are.
Q176 Chairman: There is a huge amount
to learn across.
Mr Aylett: Well, it is very strange,
these consultations, and the only excuse I can come up with, and
I mentioned the Technology Strategy Board, but the Automotive
Innovation and Growth Team has just come up with its report and
we were not consulted at all, the motorsport industry, not at
all about the Automotive Innovation and Growth Team for the next
20 years in the UK. Now, Malaysia, if it discussed its automotive
industry, would undoubtedly embrace somebody from motorsport,
but we were not, and the excuse that I will give you is, I am
afraid, the vacuum of the dialogue all went through MDUK for five
years. Would I be right, Colin? In all government departments
every discussion was focused on, "We have committed £16
million. These are the people who know. Pass all your enquiries
to MDUK" who had no connection going on, and I have a feeling
we are in the aftermath of that and we would love to break free
of it.
Q177 Chairman: I think the timing
of our inquiry is serendipitous.
Mr Aylett: Incredibly so.
Q178 Chairman: That is a word I like
using, and I managed to get it out as well! Let us move on to
academic issues, broadly defined, and Mr Dickison, I suspect,
will have his moment in the sun now and I think others will want
to contribute as well. Motorsport obviously, particularly the
top-end stuff, is seen as a very glamorous activity that can excite
young people's interests in the science, technology, engineering
and maths subjects. What can we do to maximise that opportunity
and do we need to do more?
Mr Dickison: Well, I am not sure
insofar as, in the way that we structure our courses, we try and
have them so that they are very interesting for the students and
they are very relevant to the industry itself.
Q179 Chairman: I want to talk about
the courses later, but I want to talk about attracting young people
into the STEM subjects more generally because motorsport and,
for that matter, high-end aerospace, there are some industries
which are genuinely exciting to young people and can be used to
excite their interest in engineering subjects, so do you think
more could be done? I am thinking particularly of the Learning
Grid, which I do not know how many of you are aware of, where,
I understand, its funding has now ceased from EMDA.
Mr Aylett: That was one of the
MDUK programmes. You might be interested if I just give you some
of the stats of young people. Swansea started its course, its
engineering degree, in 1998 with 20 students and it now has 300
going through.
|
