While Truss blames workers for the Tory productivity crisis, Labour has a plan for growth

Stephen Kinnock MP

The Conservative leadership contest has utterly exposed the party’s deep disdain for working people across Wales and Britain more widely.

First, frontrunner Liz Truss was keen to cut the pay packets of public sector workers outside London — a shameful betrayal of working people and the very antithesis of levelling up.

Then Rishi Sunak admitted freely that, as Chancellor, he had deliberately diverted funds away from Britain’s poorest areas towards wealthy, leafy, Tory-run suburbs in rural Southern England; pork-barrel politics at its worst and again the very definition of levelling down.

And now it comes to light that Truss has publicly stated that British workers lack the ‘skill and application’ of their foreign counterparts. Those comments beggars belief. Offense aside, these comments reveal a shocking lack of understanding of how the economic policies of the last 12 years have held us back, and what is needed to stop the rot.

Put simply, Britain’s productivity problem does not come from British workers being lazy. It is directly linked to the collapse in British manufacturing and the 12 years of Tory under-investment — in comparison to similarly developed countries — in Research and Development, leading to some of the lowest levels of private sector investment across the 38 OECD countries. Add to this a total absence of industrial strategy across skills, infrastructure, energy and procurement and British workers have been forced to compete with one hand tied behind their backs for a decade.

Fundamentally both Conservative candidates support the low-investment, low-growth, low-wage, race-to-the-bottom economic model that has held Britain back for too long. This downward spiral — combined with openness to illicit finance from Russia and over-dependence on Chinese supply chains — has left us il-prepared for a pandemic or war in Europe, and simply unable to sustain the level of growth we need to generate the wealth required to invest in jobs and public services in Wales and beyond. It was therefore no surprise that at the recent Cardiff hustings neither candidate could commit to delivering more investment and better outcomes for the people of Wales.

But, fortunately, in Keir Starmer Labour has a leader that has been able to set out an alternative vision for our economy — offering the British and Welsh people the fresh start we need.

In the short-term Keir has said that a Labour government would freeze energy bills and save British households £1000 this winter, while in the long-term he has set out Labour’s mission for ‘growth’ growth, growth’ — an economic policy to grow the economy and create jobs all over Britain, including in Wales and in my Aberavon constituency.

Labour’s Make, Buy and Sell more in Britain policy is at the heart of this new agenda. Our party’s promise to support British businesses to land more government contracts is accompanied by a policy to back 100,000 new start-up companies. This approach will help to deliver on three critical measures. First, delivering growth and jobs. Second, ensuring these jobs help level up, as manufacturing and start-ups will be encouraged across Britain. Thirdly, this modern, advanced manufacturing renaissance will deliver supply chain security and resilience into the backbone of our economy.

This third point is vital because now more than ever economic resilience is critical. When Labour was last seeking to win power after a long period in opposition — in the 1990s — this was less of an issue because it was assumed the likes of Russia and China would integrate slowly into the liberal world order. But the last decade has shown that we need to be wary of investment from hostile forces, and the Conservatives have been asleep at the wheel. It cannot be right that dirty Russian money has flooded the city of London (and filled the coffers of the Conservative Party) while Chinese state-backed finance has bought out large chunks of our critical national infrastructure, including one third of Hinckley Point Nuclear Power Satiation.

The British public want a Britain that can stand on its own two feet, as shown by research from Renaissance — the voter engagement initiative that I Chair. This is why Labour’s Green Steel Renewal Fund is so important. By committing to invest in making Britain a leader in green steelmaking, Labour is not only ensuring that we keep well paid, meaningful steel jobs in Aberavon and other parts of Wales for generations to come, we’re also strengthening the backbone of our national security and economic resilience, given the vital role steel plays in our critical infrastructure. Steel will continue to be an integral foundation material in the century ahead — and offshoring steelmaking would only mean offshoring jobs, undermining our sovereign capability, and offshoring carbon emissions.

Ultimately Keir’s speech showed how Labour recognises that the state has far more of a role to play in generating wealth than delivering the short-term sugar high (and long-term damaging low) of cutting taxes and deregulating. Instead we need the state working in partnership with the private sector to invest in supporting businesses with seed finance, skills and innovation, so that we can unlock more private investment and drive up productivity.

Ultimately what is clear is that only the Labour Party has a plan that can deliver the security, prosperity and respect that Welsh businesses, our workers, their families and local communities deserve.

And only the Labour Party’s plan for ‘growth, growth, growth’ can get the British and Welsh economies firing on all cylinders.

Stephen Kinnock is Member of Parliament for Aberavon and chair of Renaissance