Rebecca Long-Bailey speech on Labour’s industrial strategy
York has a proud industrial past.
In the nineteenth century, many of the
sweets and chocolate brands we all know and love, such as Terrys and Rowntrees,
started production in York. By the end of the century, confectionery production
was a major employer here, second only to the railways.
Confectionery production maintains a
presence in York. But, like many industrial communities across the North of
England, the industry has faced significant challenges.
Only a few weeks ago, Nestle announced
job cuts across a number of factories, including York, and the move of Blue
Riband production to Poland.
The decline of these industries and,
indeed, other key manufacturing hubs across the country, has been largely due
to the economic choices made by successive governments.
They didn’t just leave a gap in the jobs
market and a gaping hole in our economy. Their exit from places up and down
Britain quite simply ripped the heart out of communities, leaving many areas
struggling to bounce back.
Those communities felt left behind, their
pride, hopes and dreams shattered.
But in the last few weeks, Labour has
used this election campaign as an opportunity to lay out a bold vision of a
different Britain.
A Britain that will rebuild these
communities.
A Britain that looks after its sick and
its elderly.
A Britain that gives every child the
chance to reach their full potential. And in which going to university doesn’t
leave you saddled with tens of thousands of pounds worth of debt.
A Britain in which everyone who works
earns enough to live on, and everyone who doesn’t work has the chance to find a
decent, fulfilling job.
A Britain that is quite simply: fairer;
richer; and happier.
Today, I am here to talk about how we
build that Britain.
Because we can’t do it with an economy that
relies on debt-driven consumption to drive growth. Families using credit cards
just to get by.
We can’t do it with an economy that is so
imbalanced that people in London earn £134 more a week than in Yorkshire.
And in which the top 1 per cent own 24
per cent of wealth.
Now, Labour’s manifesto is a promise to
rewrite the rules in favour of the majority of people in this country. And
today, I will set out how we will do that for our economy.
For years, Britain’s economy has been
rigged in favour of narrow but powerful interests in the financial sector in
one corner of England.
We were led to believe that, released
from the shackles of regulation, the growth of the City of London could sustain
the whole economy.
That we shouldn’t worry about our once
proud industrial communities being sent into managed decline, because we had the
welfare state to redistribute to areas of the country left out of London’s
growth.
That we shouldn’t worry that swathes of
the country were seeing their potential wasted – or that the activities of the financial
sector grew more and more detached from people’s needs – because all that
mattered was headline growth.
The 2007 financial crisis showed us the
dangers of an economy overly reliant on an unfettered and highly volatile
financial sector.
But Britain is yet to learn that lesson.
Headline growth may have recovered since
the crisis, but the structural weaknesses of Britain’s economy remain.
Our economy continues to be grossly
imbalanced – sectorally, towards the service sector, and geographically,
towards London and the South East.
Productivity and investment are stagnant.
Our balance of payments deficit shows no
sign of shrinking.
And average earnings are not expected to
return to 2008 levels before 2021.
It is completely unacceptable that, 10
years on from the financial crisis, people who played no part in creating it,
are still paying the price.
And the country’s decision to leave the
EU last summer has raised the stakes even more.
When Britain leaves the EU, developing a
new economic model, and a new role for Britain in the world, will be not just
desirable but essential.
The Conservatives have set out their
stall – choosing bombastic rhetoric over a serious strategy for negotiations.
They have picked winners, offering
bespoke deals, whilst leaving most businesses out in the cold.
They insist that no deal is better than a
bad deal.
But businesses I speak to all across the
country know that that is nonsense.
If we crash out of the EU without a deal,
it will destroy what remains of our industrial base, and fire the starting gun
in a race to the bottom on wages and workers’ rights.
Labour’s vision couldn’t be more
different.
We have said repeatedly that we will put
our economy first in Brexit negotiations.
But we will go further.
We will break with the failed economic
policies of the past, define a new relationship between government and the
economy, and rebuild our economy on a better model.
Unlike the
Conservatives, Labour will not shy away from making full use of all available policy
levers, working in partnership with business and trade unions, to rebalance our
economy so that it serves the many, not just the few.
Our
National Transformation Fund, and £250bn of lending by our new National
Investment Bank and network of Regional Development Banks, will transform our
economy and deliver one million good jobs over the course of the Parliament.
Now, Labour’s plan for the economy is
centred around three pillars.
First – national missions to address the
biggest societal issues of our time.
Second – a set of cross cutting policies
to create a fertile ground for business growth.
Third – collaboration and support at a
sectoral level.
Following the work of leading economist, Mariana
Mazzucato, Labour will set national missions to tackle the defining problems of
our age.
To meet these missions, the public sector
will make strategic investments that catalyse private sector innovation.
Our first mission is to ensure that 60
per cent of the UK’s energy will come from low carbon or renewable sources by
2030.
Climate change is, quite simply, the
biggest challenge confronting humanity.
Our ambitious target will spur the kind
of bold and decisive action that has so far been lacking.
It will also help our economy and put us
at the forefront of the emerging global renewable technology market.
For climate change is a
threat, but it is also an opportunity.
Transforming our energy
system and investing in renewable technologies will create good jobs, boost our
exports, and lower the price of energy for everyone.
Britain is home to the greatest
innovative minds of our time. We have led the world in science and technology.
As a child, I marvelled at the
technological advances my region had contributed to Britain when my dad took me
to the museum of science and industry in Manchester. We invented the computer,
we discovered graphene, we led the world in energy, to name but a few, and I was
proud of my rich industrial heritage.
But I don’t want our pride in innovation
consigned to mere school trips to museums.
I want us to write a new chapter for the
history books, where Britain leads the world in science and innovation, where
we lead the next industrial revolution.
Where our sense of pride comes not only
from the greatness of the British people and our history, but also the services
we deliver and the products we manufacture in the future.
An industrial patriotism.
So our second mission is to put Britain
at the forefront of world innovation and to ensure that the products and
services we create are manufactured and delivered here in Britain.
We will create an innovation nation, with
the greatest proportion of high-skilled jobs in the OECD and 3 per cent of our
GDP spent on research and development by 2030.
Innovation is essential to improving our
productivity, which is the best means of raising wages and boosting the
competitiveness of British industry.
The UK has world leading technological
industries and research institutions, but we are lagging behind in terms of
investment in R&D – spending only 1.7 per cent of GDP compared to an OECD
average of 2.4 per cent.
The next Labour Government will
immediately invest £1.3 billion in the first two years of Government, a proven
way to galvanise the private sector into investing much more.
We will establish two new Catapult
Centres – one for retail and one for metals, reflecting the breadth and
diversity of the UK economy.
In setting these missions, we are laying
down the gauntlet to business.
Central government will do its part by
providing the foundations on which they can be met.
We will invest in people, and ensure that
businesses can access the highly skilled workforce they want by setting up our
National Education Service, allowing everyone to upskill and retrain at any
point in life.
We will harness the £200 billion the Government
spends in the private sector each year, to promote responsible businesses.
We will direct public money back into
local economies, so that local pounds create local jobs.
We will take action to reverse the
offshoring, seen in recent decades, by bringing supply chains, and good jobs,
back to the UK.
But we will do so by highlighting and
extending Britain’s strengths, because we know that we can’t win a race to the
bottom on wages and conditions.
Labour will also take action on excessive
energy prices, which put our industries at a disadvantage.
Labour will reverse years of
under-investment in our infrastructure, investing £250 billion over the next
ten years through our National Transformation Fund.
We will introduce a Universal Service
Obligation for superfast broadband, at three times the speed promised by the
Tories, future proofing the UK economy.
We will transform our transport system
across all our regions and nations. Here in Yorkshire, we will deliver
Crossrail for the north to connect the wonderful northern cities.
But it’s not just in terms of public
sector investment that Britain has been falling behind – businesses need help to
invest more too.
That’s why Labour will set up a National
Investment Bank to fill gaps in lending to the private sector, and provide the
patient, long-term finance businesses need to grow and prosper.
Finally, our industrial strategy will
have a strong sectoral element.
As the work of economist Ha-Joon Chang has
shown, the strongest industrial economies in the world – Germany, South Korea,
Japan – got to where they are today because their governments nurtured, and
supported, key sectors as they grew.
A Labour Government will do the same;
breaking with the failed ideologies of the past and learning from the world’s
best, by supporting sectors in which Britain is already a world leader and
cultivating new strengths.
We will set up sector councils for each
strategic sector – modelled on the highly successful Automotive Council – to bring
together government, employers and workers and their trade unions as part of a
new era of economic cooperation.
Through collaborative effort between
Government and industry, Labour will create the winners of the future.
We will make sure that Britain is viewed
by the world as a symbol of innovative and industrial excellence.
We will produce a million high quality,
high-skilled and high paid jobs.
We will deliver economic growth to every
region and every nation.
Quite simply, Labour will build an
economy that works for the many and not the few.
