MHA MacIntyre Hudson: The European question – manufacturers give their views
By Chris Barlow, managing partner at MHA Macintyre Hudson in Birmingham.
OVER the coming months the debate about whether the UK stays in the European Union will no doubt intensify.
Beyond the current headlines being generated because of the migrant crisis there are many economic and social aspects to UK’s exit or otherwise to be explored too. The impact of this decision will have deep reaching implication for UK plc.
The annual MHA MacIntyre Hudson Manufacturing and Engineering Survey was keen to gauge the temperature around the European debate. The results were interesting. Some 59% of respondents to the survey believed that Britain should remain a member of the EU, but only on re -negotiated terms.
Another 9% felt that Britain should leave the EU whilst 19% felt that we should remain a member on existing terms. Of the remainder, 7% were undecided and 6% declined to answer.
When the survey asked respondents what was the main issue upon which Britain’s membership should be renegotiated, the answer was immigration. Of course, given the recent coverage of the challenges at EU borders this is not unexpected.
Specifically more than 50% of respondents took a view that the UK Government should look to reduce immigration with only 34% happy to leave it as it stood.
Curbing EU immigration is, of course, one of the Prime Minister’s key demands along with an “opt out” on the core EU aim of “ever closer union”.
The surprising aspect to the results above with regard to immigration was that the key finding of the survey was the lack of skilled employees to resource the economic opportunities of the future.
This leads to a further question as to whether the political and media hype being whipped up about an EU referendum which, of course, formed a key part of the recent General Election, has resulted in a situation where businesses are not certain what an “in -out” referendum actually means to them.
The survey revealed that 98% of businesses who exported did so the Eurozone, an increase of 15% on the previous year, perhaps surprising given the strength of the pound.
What would the implication be on those businesses if Britain left the EU? The impact of these exports, not only to the EU but worldwide, adds value to the economy, however one third of businesses did not export at all – what is the impact on them of Britain leaving the EU?
As Philippa Oldham, head of transport and manufacturing at IMechE, said: “Companies now work with global supply chains and sell all over the world and to remain competitive they need to make sure that they are developing and manufacturing the right products to meet their future customer demands.”
Would the impact of leaving the EU because we fail to achieve the necessary re-negotiated position that results in a decision to remain in Europe – truly help our companies to remain competitive?
What is very clear is that the result is far from decided and that will remain the case until business and indeed everyone else is able to get clarity on what we are voting for.
To discuss the survey or any of the matters raised above Chris Barlow can be contacted on 0121 236 0465 or at chris.barlow@mhllp.co.uk
