Manufacturing 'needs state funds'
February 18, 2009
The government is being urged to give the same financial support to manufacturing during the recession as it has to failing UK banks.
The Work Foundation think tank wants emergency state funding to help save jobs and companies.
It says the sector is "extremely important for jobs, exports and GDP", and will offer one of the best chances for growth in an upturn.
The government has pumped billions of pounds into failing UK banks.
'Need to preserve'
Ian Brinkley, associate director at the Work Foundation, said: "The question needs asking - what are we going to live on in the future?
"Modern manufacturing is once again facing a battering from the recession, but it would be a big mistake just to write the sector off.
"We need to preserve as much of the industrial base as possible because once it is lost it is near impossible to get back again.
"Despite the mythmaking around the demise of manufacturing, the sector remains extremely important for jobs, exports and GDP."
The report said that UK manufacturing had been transformed in recent years and deserved more support for research and development.
Other recommendations included a short-time working scheme to support firms and job losses in the current recession.
TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said it was "an extremely welcome report that shows the importance of manufacturing not just to today's economy but to our post-recession future".
Derek Simpson, joint leader of Unite, said the union was "urging the government to learn the lessons of past failures to support manufacturing and begin a programme of emergency support for strategic industries of which car production is most certainly one".
It wants a £13bn fund set up to "provide interim relief for producers and to cover employment costs during the crisis period".
"We can't afford to let a short-term problem deprive Britain of the skills we will depend on to compete in the world economy in the long term," Mr Simpson said.
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