IT may seem a little early to say this, but the next few weeks will determine what kind of year the people of Teesside are going to have.
In fact, I’ll go further. These events will determine what kind of place our towns and communities will be not just in 2010, but in 2020 and for many decades beyond. I’m talking about the fight to save 1,700 steel jobs at Teesside Cast Products, the greatest challenge to the economic and social wellbeing of this area for more than a generation.
The new year has brought some good news.
The reversal of the decision to close South Bank coke ovens and the possible postponement of the mothballing process buys time for the men of steel. The signs are good. People are at the highest level are listening.
But listening is one thing – taking action is another. This is no time for complacency or self-congratulation. It is the time to press home an advantage and convince the Government and the owners of Corus that it is economic sense to keep this plant open.
That is the point I will be making when, along with steelworkers’ representatives, MPs and business leaders, I give evidence to the North-East Select Committee in Redcar today. I will stress that while the tradition of steel-making is important to Teesside far more important is its future and its potential to create wealth for the region – and the country.
This is not a bail-out. It is an investment.
The future of steel-making is the key issue facing our region at the moment, the one that every organisation that is working for the North-East should be focusing on.
But I also want to look beyond the immediate struggle to the wider picture.
In a year’s time when, hopefully, Corus is making steel and money, I don’t want to pick up a newspaper and read of some other region in the UK where industry is under threat and another hard-working community is wondering how it will pay the bills.
For communities to have that kind of security there has to be a change in the mindset of government. Cooperation should not just happen in times of crisis. A joint body needs to be established that can strategically direct policies to sustain, modernise and expand our manufacturing base. If we do not do this we will continue to lose ground and money to our competitors.
An example; a few days ago, the London Array, a project to create Europe’s biggest wind farm in the Thames estuary, announced the award of contracts worth £2bn. Ninety per cent of the work went to overseas firms.
It is some comfort that one of the few successful UK companies was JDR Cables, based in Hartlepool; some, but not much.
Opportunities like this are lost because government and industry do not have a vision and a plan to create a modern, competitive manufacturing sector, through consistent, long-term cooperation and investment in training and technology.
Unless we make that investment, the awful uncertainty that thousands of Teesside people face today will be visited on communities across the country; maybe not today or tomorrow, but one day soon. I have seen what that uncertainty has done to people and I would not wish it on anyone.
We are now, in all but name, in a General Election campaign with all its points-scoring.
All politicians need to remember that this time around, it won’t be here-today, gone-tomorrow slogans and spin doctors that will win people’s confidence, but lasting strategies that will secure the future for them, their families and communities.
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