Editor’s comment for March 2020

Marcus is politically savvy, undeniably passionate, and through his vast manufacturing experience – formerly as head honcho in Europe for Yamazaki Mazak – he understands, as well as anybody, how manufacturing works on a grand scale.

Not surprisingly then, his speech was balanced in terms of what lies ahead. Marcus emphasised that currently UK manufacturing directly employs 2.6 million people with a further 2.5 million providing supply and service operations. Collectively, it accounts for 15% of GDP.

As he also noted, through the provision of the equipment, ideas, expertise and innovation, that UK manufacturers are the ‘Champions of Productivity’ and as such we have the opportunity – and indeed the responsibility – to improve the well-being of the entire country.

The sentiment here is that we really don’t know what’s around the corner, but whatever it is, we have to adapt and work with it. For me, that’s a given – the UK manufacturing fraternity has proven time and time again that resilience and resourcefulness is in our DNA. We’re going to need every ounce of that resourcefulness moving forward.

Economically, we may have left the EU but this is only the start. As Marcus asserted, negotiations will be tough; the EU won’t roll over and give us exactly what we want and whatever we get won’t be as good as what we had. But the single market accounts for 49% of our exports and 54% of our imports so it’s of paramount importance that we come out of this positively. Underestimate it at your peril.

It’s a fallacy, and in my humble opinion absolute cloud cuckoo land territory that we can somehow circumvent the trade that the EU provides, Yep we certainly will be able to strike up new trade deals with nations outside the EU and that’s a really good thing, but we need to remember that we don’t have an empire anymore, Winston Churchill isn’t Prime Minister, we are a small country and manufacturing is global. An isolationist approach certainly won’t cut the mustard here and will be damaging to our future prosperity.

It’s a massive time of change. The Government announced recently that it would be bring its combustion engine ban forward from 2040 to 2035. Personally, I think said Government is more concerned about looking dynamic amongst its peers through headline grabbing directives and soundbites than actually worrying how it’ll affect real people in the real world – but that’s another story.

This will cause disruption – but it will also create opportunities. Nothing stands still does it?