Law at Loughborough for advanced manufacturing discussion

Philip Law, BPF’s Director General,  attended a Round Table meeting on Advanced Manufacturing held at Loughborough University, where he had the opportunity to state the case for the plastics industry as a ‘Foundational industry’

The Rountable was chaired by Professor Anish Roy, Associate Dean for Research and Innovation, with a panel including the MP for Loughborough, Dr Jeevun Sandher. About 35 stakeholders from the engineering industry were present including representatives of BAE Systems , Siemens, Rolls Royce and Cummins,among others

Philip Law was impressed by the regional ambition of the University and made the point that the plastics industry is widely dispersed throughout the UK and he  hoped that Loughborough were working with other universities to enable companies outside the East Midlands to have equal access to such excellent facilities.

Addressing Dr Sandher MP, Philip Law said that increasingly the government is using concepts like ‘Advanced manufacturing’ ,' Foundational industries' and 'Frontier Industries' as criteria to assess the suitability of companies to access financial aid. However, such concepts are ill-defined and need more precision. He added that the UK chemicals industry had just been awarded a large sum partly on the grounds that it is a 'Foundational industry'. However it is unclear if the plastics sector is in scope to this despite it having an upstream dependence on chemicals and the fact that 'Materials' in genersl constitute a 'Foundation industry'.

Philip Law also pointed to another related anomaly in that UK government maintains a list of 'Critical Minerals'  But no equivalent list of 'critical plastics' exists despite their uses in defence,healthcare,food and water distribution, energy and digital infrastructure.

He also took the opportunity to inform the audience of threats to the UK's sovereign capabilities in materials management. For example, the UK imports over 50% of plastics raw materials used and an even greater proportion of the machinery and equipment deployed in the UK plastics industry. Some key plastics raw materials are not made in the UK at all.

He asked Dr Jeevun Sandher MP to be aware of the EU's Industrial Accelerator Act which threatens to give preference to the use of 'Made in EU' products snd deny access to UK products . Philip Law said the EU could also introduce further measures  which might put UK plastics firms at a competitive disadvantage. He believed that in this broader context innovation at Loughborough and other UK universities is extremely important.