MP for Gosport Caroline Dinenage today met with top bosses of some of the UKs leading manufacturing companies to discuss the key issues affecting the manufacturing industry in this country.
At a breakfast meeting, Caroline sat with key figures including the President of Boeing, Sir Roger Bone; Chief Executive of Finmeccanica UK, Alberto de Benedictis and Andrew Ellis, Head of Strategy for GSK Global Manufacturing. The topics discussed included how to change the image of manufacturing in the UK and make it attractive as a career prospect, what can be done to address the skills deficit in UK manufacturing and what MPs and the Government can do to help sustain and grow the UK Manufacturing Industry in the face of international competition.
Caroline said ‘Manufacturing in Gosport, as in the rest of Britain, is a massive employer – our global position has been in decline over recent years with too much reliance on foreign companies and not enough emphasis on our global competitiveness from the previous Government. This is why this was an excellent opportunity for manufacturing leaders and politicians to sit down and talk about how best to reverse this trend.”
She added “Today’s meeting was a great chance to engage with some of the big companies that generate jobs and training in the Gosport Constituency – Boeing and Finmeccanica are both major customers of own biggest employer Vector Aerospace. It’s clear that our schools need to put more emphasis on the skills that drive the UK manufacturing industry – subjects like engineering and science – to ensure this country’s success in the future. Gosport has a proud tradition of producing great engineers at sites like Vector (formerly Fleetlands) and HMS Sultan and we hope to encourage marine and aviation engineering based businesses at the Daedalus site, but we can only do this with the right skill-base”.