The news here over the last couple of months has been full of the government running about trying to save manufacturing companies, the big name is obviously the GM subsidiary Opel.

The government is coming up with initiatives to help people invest in manufacturing and to help boost sales of produced goods.

This week they are in talks with Fiat, Magna, Ripplewood and BIAC over the future of Opel, and in all probability Vauxhall. They are offering large loans and subsidies, as long as the manufacturing plants in Germany are kept and job losses are kept to an acceptable minimum.

I was therefore rather shocked, when I got home and listened to the Radio 4 Today Programme podcast, that the UK government isn't lifting a hand to help Vauxhall, or from the sound of it, any other manufacturing industry. In fact the presenter seemed to think it was absurd that the UK government would step in to help - as they make too many cars, which people don't want - whilst the unions and ex-Ford manager were saying that they are bailing out the banks, but not lifting a finger to help / save revenue generating industries.

As I am only getting the odd tid-bit from the Today Programme, I can't really comment on what the UK is really doing, but is it as bad as they are making out? Is the UK government really letting industry, research and development skills etc. go to the wall, without lifting a finger?

In short, yes.
Mind you, save for a few specialist areas, British manufacturing has been dying for years.

Pretty much yes, at least as far as actual manufacturing is concerned.
Most of the heavy manufacturing and therefore jobs and votes that go with it have been dying in this country for years. In a global economy that's hardly surprising as, for pretty much everything apart from highly specialised items, there is little way the UK or indeed most of Europe can compete with the likes of the far East or places like India.
Sadly, the government appears to have pinned its hopes on the massively expanding financial sector to support the UK economy. Sadly we all know where that has gone recently.

The thing to remember about the car industry is that there simply aren't any major UK owned manufacturers left for the government to prop up (unlike in Germany) so any investment the government pours in doesn't go to the UK and doesn't offer any sort of reliable guarantee that UK plants will stay open in the long run. I suspect their experience with trying to keep Rover going put paid to that.

R&D stuff is probably a bit different as it's still something that the UK can compete in very well although it depends very much on the industry.

I really don't understand the obsession with manufacturing. People say we need it for the bad times because then we have "stuff to sell", but as we're seeing, no-one's buying, so how's that any better than having an ailing banking sector etc?

The United Kingdom has a much higher level of interest in advanced tech./highly skilled/specialised manufacturing, rather than cars etc. E.g. The UK space/satellite industry is a world leader, the UK chemical industry does quite well for itself too.

None of the rescuers are German either, but it guarantees German jobs for at least a couple of years and keeps the manufacturing base here and the skills here...

Interestingly, my brother works for a large manufacturing company and they wanted to contract out part of the production of a new model. The UK won the contract over India, because they were cheaper! (Although a lot of that had to do with the poor performance of the Pound against the Dollar.

I think this has more to do with how the company has been run over the last few years. The product line has become very Americanised and that doesn't sell, at least not over here. Opel's market share has gone down drastically in the last couple of years, whilst Volkswagen, Fiat and the French companies have won significant market share.

They aren't doing that on being cheap (well, Fiat are at the moment), they are doing it by understanding their target market and providing the right cars.

I agree, the auto industry isn't everything, but it is still an important one. Although it does seem to follow the UK government's hatred of anyone who wants to leave their home and travel anywhere (by any form of transport)...

Even before this recession the UK car industry required an excessive amount of subsidy to stay afloat in an industry with absurd overcapacity (worldwide). The subsidy levels (usually in the form of tax incentives) are so high that any jobs created are only of marginal value to the wider economy.

Financial services has been the most buoyant sector of the UK economy since the 1860s, and, despite the sector's current unpopularity, it is a far better place for us to spend our bail out cash than our perpetually crap car industry. In 10 years time our banks will be healthy and generating large piles of dosh for Britain, but our car industry will still suck.

It's quite right too that the government don't bail out the motor companies.

It was only right for the government to bail out the banks because every single one of us depend on them. Does every single citizen rely on Vauxhall? Of course not. If Vauxhall is allowed to go to the wall, will other jobs be created in time? Of course they will.

It's not good for those involved, but I really think that instead of giving/lending money to the car companies, they should let them go bust and then spend money on regeneration of the area. Creating jobs by revamping the local roads etc etc it seems to be common sense to me.

The British government doesn't have any money left to help anyone. They've already mortgaged the entire country as it were.

The best way I see this is for the UK to invest heavily in renewable tech and hydrogen cars. If we can cut off as much dependability on import gas and oil for cars the better. We can generate more jobs for the UK and more revenue. It sounds easy to say but I think it's a great idea.

I'm a big fan of the "Hydrogen Economy" concept. It has serious issues to address, but the potential is fantastic.

Britain used to be the motherland of innovation and invention, but somehow in the last hundred years we've totally lost the ability to turn it into profit. We still have some of the best universities and brains in the world. We should be doing better

Bail out the company and save a few hundred jobs, or pay a few hundred people for not having a job?
I agree with you of course, just pointing out the other side as it were...

The fact the UK has a manufacturing sector is quite a surprise to me, I thought we only dealt with services, though that's being more and more out-sourced, we seem to be a country bent on middle management.

Who give a pork pie (mmmm) to satellites and stuff if we don't have money to import the materials or have the key skills to put it together?

I want a pork pie now

Nick, that takes years, and frankly doesn't provide the same number of jobs in the same industries. You don't go from being a skilled welder to tarmac-ing roads. Nor would you probably want to.
Coming from an area where the local industry collapsed (ship building), the effects from that going are still felt today.
And instead of ship yards, what do they have instead?
Flats, call centres and drive through fast food.
Doesn't employ nearly as many people, the base line poverty is higher and the health's worse.

One of the big areas that Opel are putting in big R&D spend into is electric and alternative fuel cars at the moment. I think this is one of the reasons that so many are keen to step in and help.

I know the worldwide auto industry is going to go to the wall sooner or later. Those that don't work hard now on alternate fuels and automation of the driving experience are going to disappear in the long run. I do see the auto industry as a dinosaur watching a slowly encroaching ice age and carrying on chewing the cud. Just look at Karmann or the Conti/Schaeffler fiasco. And Porsche are pretty much on their own, having tried a hostile take over of VW (generating €9 milliard debt), it looks like they will now be swallowed by VW!

But in the case where several companies are bidding with GM for the take over of Opel, things are different. All of the buyers are coming from outside the homeland of Opel and Vauxhall. The German government is trying to find the best match for Opel, that will ensure as many jobs as possible stay in Germany, for as long as possible. If Opel disappears, that will probably generate between a quarter and half a million unemployed, I would think that it will be the same in the UK, on a smaller scale (50,000 jobs in total, with the support infrastructure?).

If it was just the government throwing good money after bad, I could understand it, but to not try and ensure that any takeover bid at least tries to rescue some of the UK jobs?

As Alex says, the recovery won't be that simple and it certainly won't be quick (under a decade) in the areas where the plants close.

One big problem is that very few students are doing engineering anymore, opting for stuff like "media studies" and other "soft" degrees. They seem to have this strange idea that a degree will open loads of doors to well-paying jobs - well that ain't the case anymore. Where I work, we're finding it incresingly difficult to find people with not only the right qualifications but also the right attitude. It used to be that if you had a Ph.D, you started on ~£30k a year. Now, if you don't have experience, you start on £24k (and even then, some of them seem to be a bit laking in common sense).

We've become a country that relies on "service" industries (finance, IT etc) rather than engineering and other industries that actually make things (unless you count the foreign-owned firms like Toyota/Honda/GM etc.). It's a shame really. We used to lead the world..