Salmond urged to offer support for manufacturing

Published on Saturday 4 July 2009 14:41

THE SCOTTISH Government is facing calls to draw up an urgent strategy for the beleaguered manufacturing sector.

Industry groups and opposition MSPs say the 900 job losses announced at drinks giant Diageo's plants in Scotland, plus renewed uncertainty last week over the future of shipbuilding on the Clyde, have highlighted the fragility of the Scottish manufacturing sector, which has shrunk by two-thirds over the past 30 years.

John Park, shadow minister for economy and skills, is this weekend urging Alex Salmond's government to draw up an emergency turnaround plan to ensure manufacturing in Scotland does not disappear off the map.

He is pushing for the government to hold a national manufacturing summit as early as next month which would allow policymakers and key industry figures to thrash out how better to support existing firms and to develop expertise in future growth areas such as electric cars.

"We are getting close to the critical mass in manufacturing in Scotland," Park told Scotland on Sunday. "We need to see an intervention from the Scottish Government. Enterprise ministers have held mind-mapping seminars, which is all very well and good, but what we need is a manufacturing strategy, and that has to be part of a meeting with key people within industry.

"This needs to be done sooner rather than later. Certainly after the July period you'd want to get key industrial figures together."

It is estimated that more than 100,000 jobs have been lost in Scottish manufacturing over the last decade alone.

Diageo's announcement last week that it intends to close its bottling and packaging plant in Kilmarnock and a grain distillery at Port Dundas in Glasgow compounded fears for the sector's future.

Uncertainty over two of the last remaining shipyards on the Clyde was also created when a leaked memo revealed on Tuesday that they had been earmarked for possible closure by the Ministry of Defence after a contract to build an aircraft carrier comes to an end in 2014.

Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy has since raised the prospect that Scotland will be awarded a contract to build a new generation of frigates, but industry leaders insist a national strategy needs to be drawn up to nurture emerging industries and to ensure that Scotland's workforce will be sufficiently skilled.

Liz Cameron, chief executive of the Scottish Chambers of Commerce, said: "At the heart of all of this is that we have enough young people who are motivated and sufficiently skilled to make us competitive on the global stage in the future."

However, Peter Hughes, chief executive of Scottish Engineering, warned that manufacturing is still a big employer in Scotland and there is a danger of talking the sector down.

He said leading companies such as Weir Group and Clyde Blowers are lean, highly efficient operations which continue to contribute a great deal to the Scottish economy.

He said: "The good thing is that the manufacturers which have survived are damn good at what they do."

According to the latest estimates, manufacturers employ 218,000 in Scotland and generate 12bn for the economy – approximately 13 per cent of Scottish GDP.

A spokesman for the Scottish Government said Salmond's administration is already helping Scotland's manufacturers through its economic recovery programme, including doubling the budget of its Scottish Manufacturing Advisory Service.

He said: "This kind of practical help is what is needed – help which is a response to some of the issues highlighted in the many sessions Enterprise Minister (Jim Mather] has held with the industry.

"Top-down strategies are exactly what businesses don't want or need as they face the challenges of recession."