Monthly Archives: May 2012

The Yorkshire and Humber region has a long history in manufacturing and engineering and (despite the impression sometimes given these days), the region still has many successful businesses in these sectors. It’s important to remember that although there is a lot of media attention on financial services, manufacturing still contributes more to the country´s GDP (12% versus 9%).

Last Friday, I attended the Dods “Yorkshire 2012 and beyond” conference, at the Leeds Metropolitan University. The conference looked at what can be done to generate economic growth in the region. I participated in a panel on international transport links (rather appropriate for someone who travels from Leeds to Brussels by train most weeks…).

During this event, I spoke to a representative of the glass industry, who informed me that his sector had some problems recruiting, particularly getting young people to enter the industry. The age structure of some companies (too many workers retiring in the near future) means that bringing in new young recruits is very important for long term workforce planning. The representative reminded me that careers in manufacturing are not just on the production front, manufacturers also need people to do marketing, finance, human resources etc.

The previous weekend, I had the had the pleasure of attending the 60th anniversary celebrations of Cummins Turbo Technologies, a world leading manufacturer of turbochargers whose UK operations are primarily based in Huddersfield. The company began life as Holset Engineering in 1952 set up by a Mr Holmes and a Mr Croset and was bought by Cummins in 1973.

On offer to visitors were tours of the research and development facilities and the production line, engineering themed games and puzzles for children, a film of the history of the company, a brass band, a rock band, a bouncy castle, and pie and peas for lunch (good Yorkshire food!).

I was taken on a tour by Dr Dave Green, Director of Engineering who was an excellent tour guide. Thanks to Dave I can quite honestly say I have a far greater appreciation of the world of turbo chargers than I did before. For the uninitiated, turbo chargers are an integral part of diesel engines and in the case of Cummins’ products, go in cars, vans, trucks, tractors and power generators all over the world.

Cummins is a global company with 1,100 of its staff based in Huddersfield, where the company’s global research and development and European manufacturing takes place. The company naturally recruits many engineers to work at its Huddersfield site, although Dr Green informed me there are not always enough UK candidates, so the company has to go further afield to other European countries and even India and China to recruit sufficient engineers. With future recruitment in mind, the company goes into local schools to encourage children to think of a career in engineering and works closely with nearby universities with engineeing faculties including Huddersfield and Bradford.

My conversations in recent weeks seem to indicate that not enough young people in the region are considering careers in manufacturing and engineering, despite highly successful companies that are able to offer good career prospects. It seems amazing that this is happening at time of very high youth unemployment. The government´s recently launched apprenticeship scheme is one way that this trend can be reversed, but it is too soon to evaluate its success right now.

I  would be curious to hear the views of others on how we can encourage young people in our region to go into manufacturing and engineering.

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Pakistan International Airlines has been hit by a number of problems in recent years. The EU has had worries regarding the airline’s safety record, such as in 2007 when the majority of it’s fleet was banned from landing at EU airports following a numbe…

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Thanks to an agreement reached by the European Parliament last week (I voted in favour of course), the cost of using your mobile phone while on holiday in another EU country will be further reduced from July 2012.

The European Parliament already reduced the cost of making and receiving calls while “roaming” (using your phone abroad) several years ago, but the original agreements did not focus on data roaming (when you use your mobile phone to surf the internet or access your e-mails).

Very high charges for data roaming had resulted in holidaymakers receiving shockingly high phone bills (hundreds of pounds) when all they had done was use their smartphone to check a few e-mails and post some status updates on Facebook.

The agreement introduces a new price limit for data roaming and requires networks to inform customers when they are reaching €50 (about £40) of data use. As of July 2012, the maximum charges within the EU (different charges will apply to using your phone outside the EU) will be as follows:

Data (internet) use – 71p per megabyte
Making calls abroad – 30p per minute
Receiving calls abroad – 6p per minute
Sending text messages abroad – 7p per SMS

NB: costs based on current exchange rate.

Costs will be reduced further in 2013 and 2014.

This is a great example of EU action; no single country alone could have taken on big multinational mobile phone companies, but 27 countries acting together were able to force companies to give consumers a better deal.

Interesting links:

European Commission press release
Guardian newspaper article
ALDE (European Parliament Liberal Group) press release

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As those who follow my tweets (I’m @RTaylor_MEP on Twitter) already know, I’ve been busy the last few weeks with the local elections in Calderdale, the part of Yorkshire in which I was born and grew up.The LibDems in Calderdale went into the local elec…

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