Is it helpful when politicians visit your sites? Would you rather they focused on legislation?
It’s very helpful. It can always be debated whether the UK has the right tax levels as opposed to the rest of Europe. From our viewpoint, manufacturing in the UK is fairly competitive. I’ve also told David Cameron that if the UK wants manufacturers and industry, it must continue to invest in automation and productivity measures. That would contribute to an even brighter future for rebalancing the economy and creating more manufacturing jobs. UK industry hasn’t invested in automation to the same extent as the rest of Europe, so there's quite a lot of potential.

Why hasn’t the UK made that investment? What’s held us back?
It could be down to a short-term focus on profits rather than long-term focus on sustainable business. That’s a component we need to add. You see that in how companies are owned, how they’re captured in equity positions rather than being family, traditional businesses that get passed down the generations – there is pride in running your family-owned or privately-owned shop. It’s a different perspective on the short-term versus long-term sustainable business performance.

So that kind of continuity is important?
Absolutely. If you take an example in the energy field – how are EU subsidies going to work, and how will the new energy market regime look in the future? To effect heavy investment in infrastructure we need certainty about the future. We can’t shift due to short political factors; all parties need to be aligned to a certain focus on what’s best for the UK economy. How do you ensure that the developers are interested in details of long-term infrastructure enhancements? Certainty and the predictability of market conditions are the key items in moving these kinds of industries forward.

And do you feel that there’s an appetite to try and provide that sort of predictability?
There is. There’s an increasing understanding that this is a necessity. We also need to attract more newcomers into these industries, so we’ve put greater investment into graduate programmes, apprenticeships and making sure that people are attracted to these kinds of industries in the long run. By that, we’ll also manage to help rebalance the UK economy in the future.

That’s one of the things politicians admire about Germany. Business secretary Vince Cable was in Berlin recently – do you think that indicates the UK wants to create something like that here?
Absolutely, and the key aspects are probably the long-term focus and the commitment to getting youngsters into the different industrial and manufacturing areas. This is something that the prime minister, the deputy prime minister and Vince Cable have been looking at very carefully, with a view to bringing the same mood and momentum that can be seen in the German system to the UK. I’m not saying that one size fits all, and we need to adapt it to the purposes and character of the UK, but it’s a vital component in making sure we have the right people in future industrial workforces. In September, we’ll have 160 new apprentices starting, which, for the first time ever, is bigger than our graduate intake.

Siemens has done a lot of work in Hull and the north-west. In Westminster, there’s much talk about the need to rebalance across the country as well as in the economy. Is that something you’re aware of?
In the Manchester area, we have a newly-created energy centre, which will probably be growing by 100 to 200 people over the next couple of years in sophisticated, high engineering jobs. Hopefully, we’ll move forward in other regions but it’s also dependent on what our supply chain looks like and where big projects are evolving. When it comes to large infrastructure investments, it makes more sense to be close to the market instead of having high logistic costs in order to ship big wind turbines around, for instance. But here we’re really clear that we’re not just developing the established areas, but also feeding investments into new areas.
 

Tags: Issue 49, Roland Aurich, Siemens