The inquiry will seek to make practical policy recommendations addressing the emerging area of industrial sustainability and what it regards as the key issues and themes currently affecting UK manufacturing and which threaten the UK’s potential industrial growth, including questions over innovation, skills, finance and taxation, energy, SMEs, trade and investment.

Commenting on the new Manufacturing Commission, Barry Sheerman MP, APMG Co-Chair and member of the Commission said: “The APMG has long campaigned for greater understanding from politicians of the often divided manufacturing sector. The Manufacturing Commission is now in a unique position to work within Parliament and across industry to make practical recommendations. It is our aim that through focusing on industrial sustainability in our first inquiry, we can ensure that Britain enjoys a future built on a continued focus on manufacturing.”

The forming of a Manufacturing Commission builds upon the All-Party Parliamentary Manufacturing Group’s 2013 research inquiry and report ‘Making Good: A Study of Culture and Competitiveness in UK Manufacturing’, which warned that UK manufacturing is being prevented from becoming ‘wholly competitive’ by a national industrial culture that discourages companies from investing in vital long-term business drivers such as skills development and technological innovation. The Commission will seek to further address these issues. 

The All-Party Parliamentary Manufacturing Group (APMG) brings Parliamentarians and manufacturing industry organisations together to ensure as broad, and as deep an understanding of the challenges and requirements of the sector as possible.