As we continue to mark Manufacturing Week with our we ♥ manufacturing campaign, the Chairman of the Commons Business Select Committee, Peter Luff MP, has written a very positive article on the importance of manufacturing, in which he argues:
"[We should] stop talking manufacturing down. I get more than a little irritated when politicians and journalists lazily talk of the decline of manufacturing. Yes, I know manufacturing’s share of GDP has shrunk, but in absolute terms we are making more things than ever. We are the sixth largest manufacturing nation on the planet. We are number two in the world in aerospace. We are number two in the world for life sciences. We are number one in the world in motorsport – and that’s a huge and highly specialised industry employing thousands of engineers. We have the second largest premium car industry in the world. And we have a lot of more traditional industries too – chemicals, metals, bricks and so on that can still flourish in a globalised carbon-conscious economy.
"We should be saying that manufacturing should have done and could still do even better – and we should be encouraging more young people to get into manufacturing and engineering by talking up the opportunities and giving them better careers advice in schools. There are great careers to be had in manufacturing and engineering."
He also criticises the over-complexity in the skills system, an issue which EEF has been at the forefront of highlighting to the Government and opposition parties.