Manufacturers show little faith in Labour and Lib Dems

'Engineered in Britain: Manufacturing a Successful Economy? 2014' from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and accountant BDO is an annual study designed to gauge the opinion of 1,000 manufacturers and 1,000 members of the public on the current state of UK manufacturing. Two fifths (40%) of manufacturers said they preferred the Conservatives compared with 5% for Labour and 3% for the Liberal Democrats. However, 28% felt that no political party had the right answers. When asked whether the Government's policies are helping UK manufacturers, 41% of manufacturers and 34% of the public said yes, up from 26% and 19% in last year's survey. More than half (58%) of manufacturers said the Government was performing well on the economy (up from just 31% in 2013), while 26% of manufacturers said Government was performing well on manufacturing policy (17% last year). However, while the results were broadly positive there was scepticism about the feasibility of the Government's target of doubling UK exports by 2020 with 64% of manufacturers polled saying this was unrealistic. Another area of concern was skills with 89% of manufacturers polled saying that the UK is not producing enough engineers to sustain the UK's future economic growth and 65% saying the Government is not doing enough with careers advice to promote science, engineering and manufacturing in schools. Tom Lawton, head of manufacturing at BDO, said: "It seems that manufacturers and the public are broadly confident about the future for UK manufacturing and that the support being provided by the Government is welcomed and having a positive effect. However, there is clear concern over the current and looming skills shortage, lack of confidence about support for exporting and the need to continue to promote available tax incentives. "We would very much like to see a long-term cross party strategic framework established for manufacturing to help provide a firmer and clearer structure for the many manufacturing initiatives and to continue these beyond the term of a single parliament. However, the survey does suggest that manufacturers and the public think that the Government has taken many of the right steps in re-balancing the economy back towards manufacturing."