‘Skills’ – I’m glad that was the first word Liam Byrne said at the Business Breakfast recently held in Burton at the National Brewery Centre and hosted by Progress. The event was attended by a number of local businesspeople from both small and larger companies. Skills and ensuring that businesses are able to recruit workers with the right skills and training was an issue voiced by many there, from John Kavanagh, JCB’s group communications director to Bill Ganley, a local publican.

For me skills is at the forefront of everything I consider to be important when it comes to ensuring that the local economy returns to growth and that local people benefit from quality jobs. And so it was inspiring to witness businessmen and women agreeing with the shadow minister for universities, science and skills when he put his finger on an issue which for many of them, if not all, regarded as crucial to their success.

Perhaps this was unsurprising, given that Burton and Uttoxeter has always been a net exporter of jobs, a constituency whose educators have trained their young people to a high standard only to see the Midlands’ large urban centres and, inevitably, London, reap the rewards.

‘Wouldn’t it be great,’ I’ve often said to myself, ‘if we could plug this brain drain and retain these skills, together with the jobs and wealth they can attract, in the area I grew up in and now hope to serve as MP.’

We could try achieving this by leaving it all to the market and the kind of laissez-faire, trickle-down capitalism the Tories never tire of championing but which always fails to allow Burton and Uttoxeter to reach full potential

For while it is undoubtedly a blessing to be the home to great companies such as JCB, Marston’s, Unilver, Pirelli, and Coors, not forgetting the myriad small and medium-sized enterprises – shops, pubs and start-ups, I’m sure the seat can do better. I believe we can and must do better.

What is needed is an industrial strategy which embraces the technologies of the future, embraces the creative sector and the knowledge economy. A strategy which does not shy away from the challenges which lie ahead, but which embraces those challenges and reaps the benefits. And of course any strategy is only as good as the people who deliver it and so again making sure that everyone has the very best training and skills is so important.

City and Guilds has found that around three-quarters of employers in digital, IT, engineering and manufacturing cited skills shortages. And a survey of 90,000 employers from the UK Commission on Employment and Skills found that their ‘skills shortage vacancies’ – which occur when employers cannot find people with the right skills and qualifications to do the job – have nearly doubled in the past four years to around 125,000.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating the green light for some kind of top-down one-size-fits-all approach but a strategy which champions the local and the locale – A strategy which draws together the local, regional and national potential to win globally. A strategy which draws on coordination from local and national government, together with employers and employees, educators and unions – working together to give our local economy the dynamism it needs through ensuring that high-tech skills and training is made available to workers and businesses alike.

The creation of a British Small Business Administration is one of the key recommendations of a report to Labour by Andrew Adonis, into making BIS the world’s most effective business department and examining how machinery of government can better support businesses.

The SBA working in conjunction with the British Investment Bank which Labour has committed to establish supported by a network of regional banks to boost finance for small business, will carry out much the same functions as the US Small Business Administration but for UK plc.

These measures are needed to create the well-paid and highly skilled jobs that companies such as JCB rely on and continue to crave. We need quality jobs rather than the proliferation of part-time, low-paid work we’ve had under this government.

Such an approach is also required to give a badly needed shot-in-the-arm to our creative sector. With proper planning, there’s no reason Burton and Uttoxeter shouldn’t develop into a regional or national centre for the arts. I’d rather have this than the ‘unless-it’s-likely-to-make-a-profit-it’s-not-going-to-get-any-support’ market-driven approach fostered by the coalition.

Under Germany’s ‘mittelstand’ model of small and medium-sized businesses, firms benefit from apprenticeships supplying highly skilled workers and adopt a collaborative approach to industrial relations in which employees offer flexibility on wages and hours in return for more job security.

If this works in Germany, which has perhaps endured the economic storm buffeting Europe more resiliently than any other country in the EU, then why can’t it work here and in Burton and Uttoxeter.

There’s no shortage of talent and a willingness to work hard but what is needed is something more from government: a willingness to plan and to seek the implementation of an industrial strategy which aspires to a vision of what we want to become and not simply accepting what we feel is inevitable.

We need a new approach to deliver the industrial strategy our country and Burton and Uttoxeter so desperately need, an approach I believe only Labour can deliver.

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Jon Wheale is prospective parliamentary candidate for Burton and Uttoxeter. He tweets @JonWheale

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Photo: Garry Knight