Put flesh on bones of your business vows by tackling energy and wage costs, manufacturers tell Healey

Andy Burnham has been urged by manufacturers to tackle energy and wage costs – or risk his ‘reindustrialisation’ ambition becoming just another buzz word.

Industry body Make UK is asking the PM to put ‘some flesh on the bones’ of his rhetoric in Labour’s first Budget under his leadership next month.

It said the ambition must not become the next ‘levelling up’ – a slogan under previous governments that did not live up to its promise.

Make UK is calling for green levies currently added to industrial energy bills to instead be paid for in general taxation – to help bring down ‘uncompetitive’ energy costs.

It also wants Labour to roll back national insurance hikes that have made it increasingly costly to hire, and to limit minimum wage increases, while also watering down a raft of workers’ rights reforms.

A poll of manufacturers by Make UK found 47 per cent believe cutting industrial energy costs should be the government’s top priority for the sector, followed by 37 per cent calling for action on NI.

Make UK chief executive Stephen Phipson said: ‘Governments are good at promising economic resets but delivering them is much harder.

‘If reindustrialisation and growth in every postcode are to succeed where levelling up and building back better didn’t, it’s time to put some flesh on the bones of the buzzwords.

‘The Autumn Budget is the first real test of the Government’s reindustrialisation agenda. The Chancellor needs to show, through action not words, what the Government’s promises actually mean.

‘For UK manufacturers, that means making decisions right now to ease the burdens they face.

‘If the Government wants our members to stay afloat, the first step is to take some of the weight off their shoulders.

‘Manufacturers don’t need flashy new schemes and announcements. They need Government to remove the barriers that stop them from hiring, investing and growing.’