Energy, Environment and Sustainability Group
But seriously, I have heard very little in the way of constructive debate about how we should be approaching our new trading agreement with the European Union. It will not be a complete disconnect the way some are portraying it; remember the American War of Independence? Even during that war there were privateers running the blockade and 250 years later we are still close trading partners.
The disappointing aspect of the current debate is how any discussion seems to degenerate into a party political scrap; all the more ironic with the major parties split on the issue. It is far more important to leave our political pistols in the porch and get down to the task at hand. We need up-to-date research on which components of the British economy are dependent on the EU, are they developing, static, or declining and what we can expect from them in employment and prosperity terms in 20 years time. With these priorities we can arrive at an objective and credible strategy for negotiating trade agreements that will benefit our grandchildren, instead of a few vested interests with lobbying power. Indeed it would be irresponsible of any government with a narrow majority to adopt any other position, however politically expedient it may be; we have seen far too much political irresponsibility lately.
In the engineering field we cannot go back to the past. We don’t have an Empire to supply us cheap raw materials and buy our finished products; we don’t have the energy or material resources to engage in heavy engineering on a grand Victorian scale and we don’t have, and cannot support, cheap labour to spare for mass production. If we choose to compete globally on these terms we will lose badly. But we do have a cultural talent for innovation and world-beating ideas that few can match and some existing firms are showing the way.
Given the above we have to focus on being the best at whatever we do and aim at the top of any market in which we compete; but this should be a no-brainer because most engineers I know are like this anyway. Only in this way can we stay ahead of the crowd by producing high quality products for maximum margins with minimum materials and least labour. This doesn’t just apply to manufacturing; it applies to infrastructure, intellectual property, designs, consultancy and other services. Our engineering service industry cannot be allowed to just add cost, like most other services; it must add value that is difficult to find anywhere else in the world, thus allowing GB plc to compete globally.
This high quality concept should also apply to other industries. When biomass for power generation was first discussed it was never seriously considered as an effective business model for the UK. Anybody can burn wood and try to justify it on dubious sustainability grounds against fossil fuels but the truth is that we don’t have the available land space for the scale of forestry to just burn the stuff. We don’t even bother to collect the real forestry waste – brash – we just burn the product of 35 years’ investment. Nor can we compete with countries like Finland on softwoods for paper pulp so our forests should be focused on supplying high quality timbers for construction, furniture and other industries.
As a specialised example, nobody in the global musical instrument business is planting replacements for the ebony, mahogany and spruce used by most stringed instrument makers, but we can grow beautiful equivalents in this country. We have the provenance of good trees for the next generation of seedlings and we can make provision for climate change while mitigating its effects and producing a high-quality product – how many wins do you need in one situation? I am almost ashamed to add that the expertise to ensure high quality trees and convert them into high quality timber is rather thin on the ground, but the British instrument industry is definitely world class. For furniture the story is also shameful; most of the European oak we use is French! I know their country is about seven times larger with a similar population to the UK, but who won Trafalgar?
None of this will be easy but we do have examples and precedence for high quality industries with world class products including engineering education – check how many far eastern students attend top British Universities. Surely this is a great starting point for building a set of new industries and with the right basic principles and a healthy dose of enthusiasm we can develop the engineering economy to provide interesting, challenging and rewarding careers. One danger is that mediocre or medium term management will allow the renewal of a cultural split between the blue and white collar factions, however, much those distinctions have been blurred in the last thirty years. To complete the blurring process I would suggest two actions:
- that unions commit to helping to upgrade their members’ skills to increase their value and produce a world beating intellectual resource, and
- management engage unions by appointing representatives to boards of directors so that unions can participate in the responsible development of businesses and industries.
These strategies, with appropriate government support, are necessary to produce a competitive, long term strategy for engineering that will benefit all, rather than short term investment and disruption that will have limited effect on everything except uncertainty.
Which seems to be where we came in . . .