Manufacturing in the UK

That this House acknowledges the decline in manufacturing in the UK; notes that the number of manufacturing jobs has fallen from 7.8 million in 1971 to 2.3 million in 2022; further notes that most of these cuts to manufacturing have occurred in the North of England, with nearly a million manufacturing employees in Yorkshire in 1971 and only 280,000 such jobs in 2022; also notes the recent Two Nations report by the Social Justice Commission which stated that a key driver of low pay is de-industrialisation, which left a vacuum of good jobs that paid a medium to high wage; and calls on the Government to rebalance the economy and tackle the regional dimension of low pay as well as investing in manufacturing jobs across the country.