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13 Feb 2003 : Column 1016—continued
Manufacturing Advisory Service
4. Mr. Michael Foster (Worcester): What assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the Manufacturing Advisory Service. [97621]
The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Ms Patricia Hewitt): The Manufacturing Advisory Service is now up and running in England and Wales. It
has been enthusiastically received by industry. Early progress reports are encouraging, and I shall publish details of that progress shortly.
Mr. Foster : My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State knows that the west midlands has for years been the engine driving the UK manufacturing industry. Will she give the House more details on how the Manufacturing Advisory Service has benefited the west midlands and, in particular, on the 100 companies that have used the service in the past seven months?
Ms Hewitt: More than 100 companies have received full-scale visits from the Manufacturing Advisory Service, and many others have received briefer advice. As a result, most of those companies have gained substantial direct improvements to their bottom line. I shall publish fuller details in the report. I agree with my hon. Friend that all MPs with manufacturing constituencies can help their manufacturing companies enormously by encouraging them to use this new, effective and practical service.
Mr. David Ruffley (Bury St. Edmunds): On the subject of effectiveness, the Secretary of State will be aware of the new target announced by Mr. Prodi last week—that of reducing the European Union law rule book by 25,000 pages from its present 90,000 pages by 2005. What useless and moronic EU red tape would she cut to achieve that target?
Ms Hewitt: As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have been at the forefront of encouraging the EU to commit itself to the better regulation discipline that we have in our country—
Mr. Speaker: Order. Let the Secretary of State answer.
Ms Hewitt: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I intend to take advantage of President Prodi's initiative, but I shall continue to work with as many member states as possible to ensure that we get a sensible and satisfactory conclusion to the current discussions on the agency workers directive. In addition, I shall continue to ensure—through the new Competitiveness Council—that the new framework for the chemicals industry does not damage the competitiveness of our world-class chemicals industry.
Mr. Peter Pike (Burnley): Does my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State accept that many businesses and industries still do not know where they can get help and advice? The new advisory service will clearly do a welcome job, but many people do not know of its existence. What can we do to publicise it better, to make people aware of where they can get help and advice before it is too late and they go out of business?
Ms Hewitt: The Minister for Employment Relations, Industry and the Regions, my hon. Friend the Member for Hull, West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), has already written to all hon. Members to inform them of the work of the Manufacturing Advisory Service. The
manufacturing centres and the regional development agencies are all sending out mail and advertising the new service in their own regions. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will help by contacting manufacturing firms in his constituency to draw their attention to this new and excellent service.
Dr. Vincent Cable (Twickenham): Perhaps out of a naive belief that the Secretary of State's Department could offer an advisory service to manufacturing, I wrote an urgent letter to her three months ago on behalf of a delegation of trade unionists from Northern Ireland whose fertiliser factory had closed down. I asked her to work with her Cabinet colleagues and to approach the principal shareholders—the Irish Government and ICI. Is the Secretary of State aware that people from her office wrote to me this week to say that, after three months' careful consideration, they had decided to transfer the matter to another Government Department? If that is a measure of the quality of service on offer, the service should be closed down. What has happened leads me to question the effectiveness not only of the service, but of her whole Department.
Ms Hewitt: I am extremely sorry if we have not acted as promptly as we should have done on that particular matter. I shall check exactly what has happened, and shall write to the hon. Gentleman.
Let me make it absolutely clear that that case has nothing to do with the new Manufacturing Advisory Service and the regional centres for manufacturing excellence, which, as I said, are operating throughout England and Wales and which we know from the earlier reports are delivering an excellent service. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will support them.
Mr. Tim Yeo (South Suffolk): Will the Secretary of State confirm that more than 600,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost since May 1997? That is an average of more than 2,000 for every week since Labour came to power. Has she discussed with the Manufacturing Advisory Service the need to improve Britain's deficit in traded goods, which is now at its worst level for 305 years? Has she discussed with the service how to improve business investment, which fell last year by more than any amount since records were first kept in 1966? Has she discussed with the service the slowdown in productivity? Productivity is now rising at only half the speed it was under the last Government. Does she recognise that, whatever the Manufacturing Advisory Service does, it cannot rectify the damage to Britain's manufacturers that Labour's policy of high tax and over-regulation is still inflicting?
Ms Hewitt: I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman is concerned about job losses and closures in the manufacturing sector. I do not remember any such concern when manufacturing was being destroyed under the Conservative Governments in two disastrous recessions.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the trade gap, but it is absurd to compare today's gap with the state of the economy under William of Orange, when it was about 100th the size of today's economy. I notice that the hon. Gentleman does not refer to the fact that world trade has been falling very fast because of the downturn across
the world. He does not refer to the fact that the United Kingdom economy—both this year and forecast for next year—is growing faster than almost any other major economy. Instead of talking the British economy down, it is high time that he supported British business and British workers. If he is so concerned about them, perhaps he would like to explain to the House how his proposals for scrapping the regional development agencies—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The Secretary of State should not do that.
Fair Trade
5. Vera Baird (Redcar): What steps the DTI is taking to promote the take-up of fair trade products by UK businesses. [97622]
The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Ms Patricia Hewitt): I strongly support the aims of the fair trade movement. The Government have provided £500,000 to help the Fairtrade Foundation with its marketing campaigns. My hon. Friend the Minister for E-Commerce and Competitiveness recently held a meeting with business leaders to encourage greater take-up of fair trade goods. I have ensured that fair trade tea and coffee are available throughout the DTI, and I have encouraged my other Cabinet colleagues to do the same.
Vera Baird : I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that reply. Does she agree that the major advantage of fair trade is to give a steady income to producers who would otherwise be totally hostage to the volatility of the commodity market? It will be fair trade fortnight from 3 to 18 March, which is why I am asking whether she intends to introduce any further steps to mark that occasion and further to stimulate and galvanise British business, which does not now immensely support fair trade throughout the world.
Ms Hewitt: I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for those remarks. I entirely agree with her about the small but none the less significant part that fair trade can play in stabilising the incomes of some of the poorest farmers around the world. Just a few months ago, I brought together industry, other Departments, voluntary organisations and international institutions to consider how we could act more effectively on the underlying problem of low and volatile commodity prices. A working group between Government and industry is considering how we can do more on that.
The other crucial action that we shall take, not only during fair trade fortnight but throughout the year, is to step up our efforts, as part of the Doha negotiations, to persuade our colleagues in the European Union to cut the tariffs that we put up against imports from developing countries. Those tariffs apply not only to raw materials but, crucially, to the value-added materials into which those countries now need to diversify.
Mr. Nick Gibb (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton): Can the right hon. Lady explain why the Mediterranean partners of the Euro-Mediterranean trade partnership do not enjoy the principle of regional cumulation that
the European members enjoy? Surely that is a fair way to promote trade and, therefore, peace in a difficult part of the world.
Ms Hewitt: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. He will be aware that in a recent speech in Brussels I set out—I hope clearly—the case for reform within the European Union, both of the common agricultural policy and, more broadly, of our tariff barriers. There is a great deal more that the European Union, and also the United States and other parts of the developed world, can do to ensure that very poor countries enjoy greater prosperity. That is, of course, good for them, but it also happens to be good for us.
Mr. Crispin Blunt (Reigate): The House should find the Secretary of State's complacency on trade in her answers to my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Yeo) alarming. The United Kingdom trade deficit is widening. The overall value of trade is falling. In the fourth quarter of 2002, the deficit in goods reached £10.7 billion. Given that desperate situation—[Hon. Members: "The question is on fair trade."] How can it possibly be right, given that desperate situation for British exporters and British businesses that want to take up fair trade products, for the Government to increase employers' national insurance?
Ms Hewitt: The hon. Gentleman seems to jump from one subject to another.
On the trade gap, the current account deficit in the United Kingdom in 2001 was 1.7 per cent. of gross domestic product. In 1989, under the hon. Gentleman's Government, it was more than 5 per cent. We will take no lectures on trade from the Conservatives, who did very little to promote fair trade.
On national insurance contributions, there is widespread support among the business community and the public for the sustained increase in national health service spending that we propose and the Conservative party would cut. The issue for the hon. Gentleman is which hospitals he would shut, and how many doctors and nurses he would sack, with his refusal to match our investment in the NHS.
Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover): Is the Minister aware that the fairest trade I can think of at this time, with a balance of payments of about £34 billion, is to increase the amount of coal produced in this country so that it offsets coal imports? Will she accept that that fair announcement for coal yesterday was sound as far as it went, and will she take another look to see whether we can save that wonderful fair place of Selby to ensure that we keep those three pits open? If we do that, it will be in sharp contrast to the lousy trade that resulted in every single pit in Derbyshire closing when the Tories were in power.
Ms Hewitt: I absolutely understand and share my hon. Friend's anger about the brutality of what was done to the coalfield communities during the Conservative years. He knows from statements that I made to the House that last year we secured within the European Union framework the possibility of investment aid to the coal industry, which has always
been excluded from regional selective assistance. I can confirm that we are making good progress on that and will make an announcement in due course.
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