Labour vows to reverse decline in UK manufacturing

theguardian.com:

Labour will pledge this week to reverse the decline in manufacturing, as new figures show a fall of 93,000 jobs in the sector since the Conservatives took power.

Touring the north-west of England on Tuesday, Keir Starmer will highlight figures in Germany, where more than 1 million manufacturing jobs have been created over the same period.

The Labour leader said manufacturing was in deep decline under the Tories because of low investment and cuts to skills budgets. He will visit Burnley, now a marginal Tory seat that was won by the Conservatives in 2019 – the first time in 100 years.

In the new analysis released by Labour before Starmer’s visit, the party said jobs in manufacturing fell by 93,000 between the end of 2009 and the end of 2021. This includes 16,000 jobs lost in the north of England and 18,500 in the Midlands.

Starmer will tour the heavily leave constituency to underline the need to revive areas where manufacturing had declined. He said a Labour government would reverse that trend with a combination of investment in new technologies and training – especially in green technologies – and the awarding of more public contracts to British businesses.

The Labour leader will visit What More, a north-west manufacturer of reusable plastic storage boxes and homeware, including from recycled single-use plastic.

“It’s not enough to just leave the EU and think the job is done: we must now make Brexit work. That means backing the places that powered our country to get our economy motoring again,” Starmer said ahead of the visit.

“For too long the decline of manufacturing has been treated as if it was inevitable and irreversible. I will never accept that. But these figures show how the government’s failure to back British business