Episode 1 Made in Britain


Episode 1

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'In a high security compound in north-west England

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'is a machine that mankind has only been able to dream about.

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'And I'm being allowed to see it.

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'The building I'm going to is anonymous.

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'Inside is a project extraordinary,

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'intriguing and extremely hi-tech.

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'Many of us think that Britain had a great industrial past, but today we make nothing.

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'But behind this door is something that disproves all that

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'and it's made in Britain.'

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What...

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'This is called the Mantis, the world's first autonomous aircraft.

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'It isn't a drone.

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'There's no-one on the ground controlling it. It thinks for itself, decides for itself

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'and flies itself.'

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I was expecting something that was a kind of oversized model aeroplane, but...

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It's just miles, miles bigger than I had pictured it.

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'It paves the way for a science fiction future of pilotless airliners

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'and driverless cars.

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'But will technology like this finance Britain's future?

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'For years, we thought the City could keep our economy growing

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'and that borrowing and spending was more important than making things.

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'Then came the Crash.

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'Britain emerged burdened with debt

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'and unsure how to rebuild its economy.

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'Now at this critical moment in Britain's story,

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'it's time to ask what should we be doing to pay our way in the world.'

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People understand the importance of manufacturing and that making things is good for the economy.

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'Although we invented mass production,

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'are we now being beaten at our own game by countries like China?

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'I've travelled to the heart of their economy and I'll challenge assumptions and myths,

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'such as we're losing out to the Chinese manufacturing giant.'

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-Could you have survived if you hadn't moved to China?

-Absolutely no, no, no.

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'Nations often define their economic success by the things they make.

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'In Britain, we're better at it than you might think.

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'You might be surprised to learn we're the seventh biggest manufacturer in the world,

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'but to pay for all our imports, we need manufacturing to get bigger still.

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'The stakes are high.'

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-You must be a bit scared. I mean, it's...

-Scared?

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I'm an entrepreneur. Why would I be scared?

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'In this series, I'll bust the myth that we make little or nothing and show you how industrious we are.

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'I'll be looking at the three great engines that power our economy,

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'how they're connected and the challenges they face.

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'The knowledge sector - what we invent,

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'services - what we run

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'and first, manufacturing - what we make.'

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At difficult times like these, it's easy to be overcome by economic gloom.

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After all, we've lots of problems to resolve.

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But there are plenty of reasons to be confident

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in our abilities and in our future.

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So what is it we do well? What do we do wrong? And how do we pay our way in the world?

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'Who says we don't make anything any more?

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'Love it or hate it, this Typhoon shows that when we put our minds to it,

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'we can do engineering as well as anyone.

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'At £75 million each, they're expensive,

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'but the Typhoon is arguably the best military jet in the world.

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'It's the product of a four-nation consortium, but BAE Systems in Britain is assembling about 200

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'and makes some of the most complex parts.

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'In the global businesses of aeroplanes and defence,

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'or arms if you prefer, Britain punches above its weight in the world.

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'I've been invited to join a test flight. Like a lot of British industry right now,

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'BAE is working hard to sell more overseas and that means constant refinement of the plane.'

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The second test point is Item 7 which is air-to-air gun attack.

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Nat, if you can monitor the director gunsight

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and assess the aiming pipper, its stability and accuracy about the target position...

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'Nat Makepeace is the company's chief test pilot.'

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-First thing, what frequency are we working?

-36.

-36, perfect.

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'Everything about the Typhoon has been designed to be hi-tech and high value.

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'It's a quarter of a million pounds just for the helmet.'

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So what do we want from manufacturing?

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You want speed, agility, sophistication, ambition.

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Is this the single object that encapsulates them all?

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-Grab the handle round here and just...

-That then goes in.

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'BAE Systems is the second biggest defence contractor in the world,

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'employing 33,000 people in this country and trading with 8,000 other British companies as suppliers.'

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See you guys later. Thanks a lot.

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'Only a fifth of its business comes from the British government. The rest comes from overseas.

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'Britain is very dependent on BAE Systems and other manufacturers to generate those export revenues.'

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-Climbing to flight level eight-zero, to flight level one-eight-zero.

-'Two-six departure.'

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Oh, my God! Oh! God!

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Ohhh!

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Whoa!

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God!

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That's Blackpool Airport on the right there. You can see the tower.

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ENGINE ROARS

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Now, obviously, you can't go and buy one of these at a showroom on your high street.

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And perhaps because you don't get to see it very often, perhaps because it's quite controversial,

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it's just one of those under-recognised manufacturing and engineering achievements.

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'But how much of an industrial force are we?

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'To answer that, you need an overview of our entire economy.

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'Well, right across Britain and all advanced nations,

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'it's services that dominate.

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'That's everything from banking to retailing

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'to distribution.

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'Services now account for three-quarters of the entire economy.

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'Manufacturing is 12% of the economy, a vitally important sector.

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'It's bigger than financial services and accounts for most of our exports.

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'We have a lot of engineering and food and drink manufacturing.

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'We're also big in chemicals and pharmaceuticals,

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'but we have let a lot of our factories go.

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'While we do sell enough overseas to pay for the vast bulk of our imports,

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'there is still a gap and we've been relying on borrowing to help plug it.

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'That can't go on.'

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It's not just me having a white knuckle ride. Our economy has had a white knuckle ride as well.

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Right now we need to start paying off debts, we need to export more, we need to import less.

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That means we're going to be relying more and more on our manufacturing sector.

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But are manufacturers capable of exporting us out of trouble?

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It won't be easy, but I think they are.

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The very forces which made us an industrial power in the first place will carry us through now.

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We're in a period of economic soul-searching, regretting the loss of our industrial past.

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But Derbyshire's Derwent Valley, birthplace of the Industrial Revolution,

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provides clues for our industrial future.

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It was here that we British invented mass production

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and laid the foundations of the wealth we enjoy today.

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It was probably our greatest contribution to mankind.

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What drove the economy to such great things back then were the same forces that drive it today.

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Three principles in particular determine our economic direction of travel.

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Now, the first rule of successful nations

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is always to move into the highest value activities they can find.

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And that means specialising in things they're particularly good at,

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hopefully, things that other people can't do so well.

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And with some great technological innovations around the time of the Industrial Revolution,

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that's exactly what they did here.

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Because it was more profitable than agriculture,

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it was towards more industry that our economy moved.

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Those early cotton industrialists also followed a second rule of successful economies -

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use the resources at hand.

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What you had here was that phenomenal water resource for the power

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and as well you've got the people.

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You've got lead mining at Cromford, you've got nail-making at Belper.

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Those are two industries where you have men working, but you don't tend to have women and children.

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And the mills were able to take the women and children and use them.

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It was a brutal business, but we developed those factories on the back of cheap labour and energy.

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And that allowed Britain to become a manufacturing giant.

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When this mill was built in the early 20th century,

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we made two-thirds of the world's cotton and over half the world's ships.

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But there is a vital third principle too

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that has governed our economy since the Industrial Revolution.

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You hardly need me to tell you that with all the wealth created around here,

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Britain comfortably became top nation.

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But there is a very important lesson.

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The world changes, others catch up and you can't cling on.

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Successful nations have to be flexible and adaptable.

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Ever since the Industrial Revolution,

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we've got rich by changing as the world changes.

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We've let our economy evolve, moving on to higher value activities

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and letting go of lower value industries.

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Leeds, for example, once grew prosperous from the rise of textiles and clothing,

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then saw it all vanish.

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It's been a traumatic process,

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but the economy benefited from the higher value enterprise that followed.

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One family firm which tells the story of how good can come out of bad is Berwin & Berwin,

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a suit manufacturing company founded in Leeds a century ago.

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It's like stepping back into the 1950s.

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The Chairman is Malcolm Berwin.

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So what was the heyday of textiles and clothing in Leeds?

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I would say probably the 1950s was the peak when there were 30,000 people working in clothing in Leeds.

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-In Leeds alone?

-In Leeds alone. The street outside where we are now,

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you could go up and down there and on right and left were clothing factories.

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But all over the city, the centre of the city, some of the outskirts of the city, were clothing factories.

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'But by the '80s and '90s, the clothing industry had changed.

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'It was time to move on.

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'Britain was more affluent and expensive.

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'Poorer countries could now produce clothes effectively and cheaply.

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'They were using the resources they had to hand - low-cost labour - to supply shops in Britain.

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'As high street prices tumbled, British clothing manufacturers were hit hard.

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'It was the simple expression of the rule that you constantly need to adapt,

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'but suit-maker Simon Berwin tried to resist, despite the difficulties.'

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You noticed the profits were diminishing because you had to squeeze the margin

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-to compete against the lower priced competition?

-To keep orders we had, we had to keep reducing the price.

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Because we were under pressure, we couldn't invest in new machinery, so we couldn't move the product forward.

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It was a double-edged sword. Maybe wrongly we felt proud that we were surviving, but survival isn't enough.

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The change was painful for workers too.

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Angie Butler had been travelling across the city to work in Berwins' factory

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and had already been made redundant by another clothing company.

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Over three decades, we lost almost three million manufacturing jobs.

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As factories closed, whole communities were affected.

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You'd seen all the tailoring firms just slowly declining and going down

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and you think, "What if it happens here, what are you going to do?"

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She was right to fear the worst.

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At the start of the new century, the Berwin factory joined thousands of others and finally closed.

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A very emotional and difficult period,

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my father saying goodbye to people who he had known for 30 and 40 years,

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and many people not really knowing what the future held.

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What about the day they came and told you?

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The day... Quite a shock.

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Quite a shock.

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Are people bitter about it, do you think?

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I think one or two would be, do you know what I mean?

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Because you gave your heart and soul and worked hard for a firm.

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The upsetting thing was seeing the headlines in the newspapers the following day,

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when it spelt out that we were the last clothing factory to close in Leeds.

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-You were the last?

-Absolutely the last.

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Yeah, it was sad.

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It hasn't just been textiles and clothes falling victim to foreign competition.

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Shipbuilding, televisions, shoemaking, toys -

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the roll call of British industrial decline seems endless.

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Great British industries have risen and have fallen by those three simple rules -

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that you use the resources at your disposal, put them in the highest value activities you can find

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and you constantly adapt as the world changes around you.

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As things do change, it can be extremely painful, but was it all bad that industries moved abroad?

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I don't think so. In many respects, it strengthened the UK economy and made a lot of people richer.

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'This is where much of our manufacturing has come -

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'China.

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'By taking on low value work, China has benefited and it's been good for us too.

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'The same principles apply here as to us.

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'They're using the one great resource to hand - the people.

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'Shanghai - a megacity of 20 million people.

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'It's the hub of China's Industrial Revolution.

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'This region has been so successful, it's already richer than parts of the UK.

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'And it's becoming more expensive to manufacture here.

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'But outside Shanghai, it's a different story.

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'Every year, some 20 new cities crammed with factories and workers

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'are being constructed all over this vast country.

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'Their growth is often based on foreign technology and know-how.'

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Just a few more steps.

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'Longkou is just one of them and I've been told of an unmissable view.'

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OK, so there's not much of a view. This is the afternoon mist.

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It takes over from the morning mist each lunchtime.

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'This ancient Buddha is a whole ten years old.

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'In fact, everything is new around here.

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'35 years ago, this was just a small rural community.

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'Longkou is now a sprawling metropolis of 800,000 people

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'which few of us will ever have heard of.'

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China's whole industrial development has been astonishingly fast.

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What they've done in two decades, it took Britain two centuries to achieve. Why?

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They've got this very good "get rich quick" scheme - you import the technology.

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They haven't had to invent all the processes they're using. Of course, it's served them very well indeed.

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But from where have they imported some of these processes? Leeds.

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It turns out that suit manufacturer Berwin didn't die when they closed their Yorkshire plant.

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They were reborn in China.

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Berwins' new suit factory is the biggest in the world,

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making half a million outfits a year for the company's customers on the British high street and beyond.

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Now, the workers here are on piece rates, but I'm told they earn about £1.50 an hour,

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a quarter of our minimum wage.

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And they do a six-day week.

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'The move to China has slashed Berwins' labour costs.

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'According to factory manager John Fleming, that's the key to the company's resurrection.'

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Don't you think it's amazing that the entire labour cost of the suit

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is less than four quid to assemble a suit?

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Yeah, but the labour cost is only a small part

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of the total cost of producing a suit and getting it back to the UK.

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But if it's a small part, why would you choose where the factory is just on the basis of the labour cost?

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Right, we're saying here the labour cost is maybe £1.50 an hour.

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-What is it in the UK? Four times that, minimum wage?

-Yeah.

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So your suit costs are going from £4 a suit labour charge to £16 a suit.

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-That's not that much, is it, on a suit?

-£12 a suit, half a million suits a year, six million quid.

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That's the difference between being in business or out of business.

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'The Berwins say investment in new machinery and skills delivers better quality than they managed in Leeds.

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'As for the Chinese, they're simply following the same rules that led to our success.

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'Our low value work represents high value work here and it makes use of abundant resources,

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'in this case, cheap labour.'

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You might be feeling suit envy, wishing we were as good at this as they are.

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But we are as good at this as they are. They don't do it because they're better at it,

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but because they're not that good at anything else. It's a sign of their lack of other opportunities

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which makes them specialise in what is relatively low-paid work.

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To most Chinese living out in the countryside, the factory pay must look highly attractive.

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But it seems poor to us.

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We could compete if we paid ourselves as little, but we wouldn't want to.

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Now, you take this four-lane highway a mile or two from the factory

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and you come to the end of town.

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Suddenly, the road narrows. It's like a time portal into a different China - the countryside,

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the 20th century China from the 21st here.

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What you have to remember is that the vast bulk of people actually live in that China, not this one.

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The vast bulk of them are on incomes of less than three dollars a day.

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With so many people, no wonder China has so much to export.

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Every one of these containers in Shanghai will be crammed full of cheap goods,

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some heading our way.

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But in my view,

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they're not so much a sign of China's strength, more of its limitations.

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Seven of the world's ten busiest ports are in China.

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That's measured by the tonnage of cargo handled.

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Yes, more weight is exported from China than anywhere else in the world.

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It is impossible not to be impressed, but we mustn't be afraid of that.

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We must never confuse the volume of what China produces with the value.

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'The truth is, China is still a relatively poor country,

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'making cheap stuff, most of which it's not economic for us to manufacture any more.

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'And we've reaped huge benefits.

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'Back at Berwins' in Leeds,

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'their former factory is now a warehouse, stocked with suits they've had made in China.

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'Should we regret the fact we import suits, rather than manufacture them?

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'That might depend on whether we can find replacement jobs.

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'Angie Butler has. Now, like almost 80% of us, she works in services. She's Berwins' warehouse manager.'

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Your old colleagues here, the ones on the factory floor, what are they up to now?

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Some of them have gone in to completely different jobs

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as there's not many tailoring firms around now, so they've gone in to different jobs, doing really well.

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-Most have found something?

-Yes.

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I would say the majority of them have, yeah,

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which I'm really pleased about. It's nice when you hear something good.

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'Not all displaced industrial workers have been so lucky.

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'But here's the thing. Since China began manufacturing for us in a big way a decade ago,

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'Britain has found plenty of other things to do.

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'In fact, a million more people are in work.

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'As for Simon Berwin and daughter Kate, things have never been better for their family firm.'

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It fits very well.

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'At London Fashion Week, their men's outfits are on parade in designer Paul Costelloe's show.

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'And since having every stitch made abroad,

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'turnover has gone up by ten times and theirs has become one of the biggest suit companies in Europe.'

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Could you have survived if you hadn't made the move to China?

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Absolutely not. Absolutely no, no, no.

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There is no way that the consumer and the retailer will pay the wages that are required in this country.

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Whether that's right or wrong, it's not for me to comment, but that is the real world.

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'And crucially, although Berwins' suits may be made in China,

0:27:030:27:08

'the Chinese only get about 20% of the retail price.

0:27:080:27:12

'Most of the rest of the money stays in Britain with the designers, transport companies, shops

0:27:120:27:18

'and, of course, the Berwins.

0:27:180:27:20

'And there are other benefits which most of us can share.

0:27:250:27:30

'Berwins' London showroom is crammed with suits for the British high street, all made abroad.

0:27:300:27:36

'They claim these suits are half the price they would be, had they been made here.

0:27:360:27:41

'We've got inflation now, but we've been enjoying falling prices for a lot of goods.'

0:27:410:27:47

Of course, there are downsides to moving production offshore,

0:27:500:27:54

but for most British consumers, the China effect has been considerable

0:27:540:27:58

and has been like an invisible pay rise.

0:27:580:28:02

We're used to prices going up year after year,

0:28:020:28:05

but the things made in China have become considerably more affordable.

0:28:050:28:09

The price of clothing, for example, has fallen by a quarter in the last 15 years.

0:28:090:28:14

The price of audiovisual equipment like radios has fallen 80%.

0:28:170:28:21

Items like toys and cameras are down 30%.

0:28:210:28:25

The drop in the relative price of manufactured goods that we've witnessed

0:28:250:28:30

is one of those economic changes that only occurs every few generations.

0:28:300:28:35

No transition is easy. We lost thousands of manufacturing jobs every month for many years.

0:28:370:28:43

But when we come to look back on what's happened,

0:28:430:28:47

we won't regret sending low value production to China. We can't do everything.

0:28:470:28:52

Far better for us to concentrate on the high value production we've kept for ourselves.

0:28:520:28:57

You see, while low value manufacturing has been journeying offshore,

0:28:590:29:04

the manufacturing that stayed behind has been on a journey too -

0:29:040:29:08

towards smaller, higher value sectors.

0:29:080:29:12

I will tell you why we might have gone too far along this road,

0:29:130:29:17

but the really important point is that this move into more lucrative sectors was, unquestionably,

0:29:170:29:24

the right direction for the economy to have taken.

0:29:240:29:28

'This is high-value production and it's what Britain does best.'

0:29:340:29:39

-Lovely.

-'McLaren is known for success in motor racing,

0:29:410:29:46

'but this is the first sports car of their own for the general market,

0:29:460:29:51

'if you have £167,000 to spare.'

0:29:510:29:54

-What I'll do now is we'll do a lap.

-OK.

-See what the car can do.

0:29:560:30:00

-OK, this is...

-Showing off. This is showing off its performance potential.

0:30:000:30:05

'Most of these are expected to be sold abroad and that's just what we need

0:30:070:30:13

'as right now we're exporting too little to pay for all our imports.'

0:30:130:30:17

The suspension...

0:30:340:30:36

Understanding braking and turning and accelerating...

0:30:370:30:42

You don't need to sell the car! You just need to...

0:30:510:30:54

..give people...a ride!

0:30:560:30:59

-Did you mean to come off the track there?

-Well...

0:31:080:31:12

'To set up their new sports car business, develop the car and build a new factory,

0:31:200:31:27

'McLaren is spending £800 million.'

0:31:270:31:30

That's one of the quickest laps a car can do on that circuit.

0:31:320:31:37

You OK?

0:31:380:31:40

To think you could take that car on the road.

0:31:400:31:44

-Did you enjoy that?

-Very, very much. That is really quite...

0:31:440:31:49

Ooh.

0:31:490:31:50

'The ride IS breathtaking,

0:31:500:31:53

'but so are the financial stakes.' If it all fails,

0:31:530:31:57

how bad is that for McLaren?

0:31:570:32:00

Well, putting aside the financial consequences of failure,

0:32:000:32:05

which is always a very difficult pill to swallow, we're a winning machine.

0:32:050:32:09

But we've got to be as disciplined and as focused as we are in Formula 1 and we should succeed.

0:32:090:32:15

'So what does this discipline and focus actually mean for McLaren?

0:32:200:32:24

'It's about striving to be best and high value in everything they do.

0:32:240:32:29

'Even their Surrey headquarters is not your usual factory.'

0:32:310:32:35

Ooh.

0:32:490:32:50

Not an oil smear

0:32:590:33:01

in sight.

0:33:010:33:03

All right!

0:33:070:33:09

This is really a film set. There's no factory or any activity here at all.

0:33:110:33:17

What was with the white corridor? I came in through a long, white corridor, went through a door -

0:33:210:33:27

-another white corridor.

-So much of what comes into buildings is brought in by humans,

0:33:270:33:33

so we clean people's feet as they go down different surface finishes.

0:33:330:33:37

But we don't just do feet. We try to do it with their minds as well.

0:33:370:33:41

'Level number one.'

0:33:410:33:44

Why expect to make a perfect product in an imperfect environment?

0:33:450:33:51

'So why has McLaren decided to branch out from racing cars

0:33:520:33:56

'to sports cars? It's all back to the basic principles - you use the skills you've got.

0:33:560:34:01

'And in Britain we have years of experience in motor racing.

0:34:010:34:06

'At the start of the 20th century, Britain had a speed limit of 20mph

0:34:060:34:11

'and there was a fear that our industry would fall behind unless cars could be tested at speed.

0:34:110:34:17

'So in 1907, the world's first purpose-built motor racing circuit was built at Brooklands,

0:34:170:34:23

'just down the road from McLaren.

0:34:230:34:26

'Two-thirds of Formula 1 teams now build their cars in Britain.

0:34:290:34:34

'Several universities have degree courses in motor sport engineering.

0:34:340:34:38

'The industry employs 25,000 engineers and it generates huge export revenues, too.

0:34:380:34:44

'McLaren has a turnover of £250 million a year.

0:34:490:34:53

'Now it plans to leverage the wealth and expertise accrued from racing

0:34:530:34:57

'to create more wealth from sports car manufacture.'

0:34:570:35:02

In five years' time, we intend to have a four times bigger turnover

0:35:030:35:08

and comparable profitability to those people who succeed in this particular market.

0:35:080:35:16

The driving force is to be the best in the world, which means money.

0:35:160:35:21

'The essence of high-value production is in selling small numbers at high prices.

0:35:210:35:27

'McLaren will sell just 1,000 cars in the first year,

0:35:270:35:31

'but that's worth three times Berwins' entire turnover on all those foreign-made suits.

0:35:310:35:38

'What McLaren does is the reverse of the Chinese model.'

0:35:380:35:42

The skill sets that exist in our organisation and the manufacturing technologies we have

0:35:420:35:48

don't necessarily fit into low-cost, high-volume products.

0:35:480:35:52

They tend to be relatively low volume with good margins.

0:35:520:35:57

At the same time, by necessity, they have to be world-leading products.

0:35:570:36:01

'OK, this is really high-end stuff, but the UK is a high-end economy.

0:36:030:36:09

'Remember, successful economies always try to focus on the high value,

0:36:090:36:14

'but there's a curious effect here. As manufacturing gets more successful over the decades,

0:36:140:36:20

'the less we see of it.

0:36:200:36:22

CLASSICAL MUSIC

0:36:220:36:24

'Let me explain with the kind help of a string quartet.

0:36:280:36:33

'This piece by Haydn still takes four people to play it,

0:36:330:36:37

'just as it did 230 years ago,

0:36:370:36:41

'but in our factories, things get faster and more efficient year by year.'

0:36:410:36:47

The oddity is that the better we get at manufacturing, the fewer people we need to do it.

0:36:490:36:55

No wonder you read headlines about factory job losses all the time.

0:36:550:37:00

'In the two decades up to the recession, we manufactured output worth 10% more

0:37:060:37:12

'with 40% fewer workers.

0:37:120:37:15

'As it gets more efficient, manufacturing gets leaner and less visible.'

0:37:170:37:23

In fact, it's one of economics' great paradoxes that the bits of the economy that are most dynamic,

0:37:260:37:32

like manufacturing, are sometimes the ones that look to be in decline.

0:37:320:37:37

It's just a fact of life that as economies progress and become more affluent,

0:37:410:37:46

they transfer resources away from manufacturing to other things.

0:37:460:37:50

We turn car workers into violinists, metaphorically speaking.

0:37:500:37:54

That's not a sign of our failure. It's a sign of success.

0:37:540:37:58

'Dynamic, efficient, high value, less visible

0:38:240:38:29

'and more niche. It's not easy to keep track of manufacturing these days.

0:38:290:38:35

'Take our bike industry. It's smaller than it used to be, but more specialist,

0:38:380:38:44

'like Brompton, the British fold-up bike.

0:38:440:38:47

'The Brompton design team wanted to show me that their bikes can be versatile,

0:38:510:38:57

'even though they're sold specifically for urban commuting.'

0:38:570:39:02

Brompton really is a very niche company with just one specialist product line,

0:39:020:39:08

but if you can find enough small, profitable niches, you can build a large, affluent economy.

0:39:080:39:14

'And a profitable niche can build an affluent company, too.

0:39:160:39:20

'Amazingly, Brompton is now Britain's biggest bike manufacturer.'

0:39:200:39:25

Here we have the really clever part of the factory. This is where all the frames are made,

0:39:270:39:33

this is where we have all the forming, cropping and bending of the raw material to make the bike.

0:39:330:39:39

'The company is turning out 30,000 bikes a year, but Managing Director Will Butler-Adams insists

0:39:390:39:45

'it's not a mass-market business.

0:39:450:39:47

'Even the cheapest bike costs £700 because, he says, specialist bikes like this

0:39:470:39:54

-'need to be high-precision and hand-built.'

-If you look at the workmanship, perfectly lined.

0:39:540:40:01

Beautiful little pools.

0:40:010:40:03

And he's put his name on it. Every brazer puts their name on each part they braze.

0:40:030:40:09

It would be nice if they could mass produce these one day.

0:40:090:40:13

If you don't have a name to it, you can rush it, you don't care, chuck it in a pile, no one knows it's yours.

0:40:130:40:19

If you put your name to something, you're proud of it. It's your workmanship for the life of the bike.

0:40:190:40:26

'At the turn of the 20th century, Rover, which later became the car firm,

0:40:290:40:34

'built the first truly modern bicycle - a niche product, costing over £1,000 in today's money.

0:40:340:40:42

'As the century wore on, companies like Raleigh built industrial empires on bikes,

0:40:430:40:48

'churning out high volumes of low-value products.

0:40:480:40:53

'Affordable motorised transport and cheap foreign competition began to take their toll.

0:40:530:40:59

'Britain's commodity bike business collapsed.

0:40:590:41:02

'In contrast, specialisation has kept Brompton very much alive.

0:41:050:41:09

'Exports of their folding bikes have been growing at 15% a year.'

0:41:090:41:14

This one is going to Singapore.

0:41:140:41:17

-Arizona.

-Spain, Spain, Spain, Spain.

0:41:170:41:20

Singapore, Singapore, Singapore. Disappearing all over the world.

0:41:200:41:24

You export about two-thirds of them?

0:41:240:41:27

To about 38 different countries.

0:41:270:41:30

'China may make specialist bikes like these some day,

0:41:300:41:34

'but they won't compete with us while we have an advantage in design, skills and branding.

0:41:340:41:40

'Fortunately, as China gets richer, the more of our high-value stuff the country can afford to buy.'

0:41:400:41:46

There is a lot of potential in China.

0:41:460:41:49

It could be bigger than all of the world we now supply put together, but the interesting thing is

0:41:490:41:57

they would only want their bikes if they were made in London.

0:41:570:42:01

If we moved manufacture to China, it would ruin it.

0:42:010:42:05

So we'd better employ a few more people and make a few more bikes and sell a few more in China!

0:42:050:42:11

'Brompton shows that dynamic companies and economies

0:42:150:42:19

'are built on the back of doing things others can't do,

0:42:190:42:23

'rather than competing with them in things they can.'

0:42:230:42:27

British manufacturing has followed a particular direction towards narrower and more lucrative markets.

0:42:300:42:37

But there's another interesting characteristic of British industry - its openness to the world.

0:42:370:42:43

About a third of British manufacturers are foreign-owned.

0:42:430:42:47

That doesn't mean we're not making things. It means investment and expertise from overseas

0:42:470:42:53

is helping ensure we're as good as the best.

0:42:530:42:57

'Just look at Jaguar Land Rover. A great British company?

0:43:110:43:15

'Well, it still manufactures here, but like most of our motor industry it's now owned by foreigners.

0:43:150:43:21

'And flourishing for it.

0:43:210:43:24

'To appreciate how overseas influence has brought benefits,

0:43:240:43:28

'we should think back to the 1970s when this company was British through and through.'

0:43:280:43:35

JEERING

0:43:350:43:37

What did you find on your first day in your new job as chairman and managing director of Jaguar?

0:43:440:43:50

Well, before I started at Jaguar, I'd just had a two-week skiing holiday

0:43:500:43:54

and only arrived back the day before.

0:43:540:43:57

I went into work on Monday morning and when I got there everybody was on strike.

0:43:570:44:02

'Chaos in the car industry resulted in production standards that were comically poor.

0:44:050:44:11

'Vehicles without lights were just the start.'

0:44:110:44:15

The quality was so bad we were repainting every body,

0:44:150:44:19

-knocking out the dents and...

-Oh, no.

0:44:190:44:23

So we were painting everything twice.

0:44:230:44:25

If I said to you, what went wrong with the British motor industry in the 1970s...?

0:44:250:44:31

The trouble was, it... Everything was wrong.

0:44:310:44:35

'We've remembered this painful period ever since,

0:44:350:44:39

'but what's less well appreciated is the quiet revolution which was to transform British car making

0:44:390:44:45

'and our entire industrial landscape.

0:44:450:44:50

'First, it was the Japanese with their new ways of doing things that helped us.

0:44:540:45:01

'We lacked good management in the motor industry and were out of date,

0:45:010:45:05

'so when the Japanese began to open new car plants in Britain,

0:45:050:45:10

'we had the good sense to learn from those who could do it better.'

0:45:100:45:15

What the Japanese brought to Britain was order, efficiency,

0:45:160:45:21

perhaps even a kind of beauty to the art of manufacturing.

0:45:210:45:25

Their methods had special names like Kanban

0:45:250:45:29

and Kaizen, meaning continuous improvement or change for the better

0:45:290:45:34

and that was certainly something the British car industry needed.

0:45:340:45:39

'Their methods didn't just revolutionise car making.

0:45:400:45:44

'They were taken up by just about every manufacturer in Britain,

0:45:440:45:48

'just like the one in this nondescript Birmingham street.

0:45:480:45:53

'Like so many of our companies these days, GKN doesn't make finished products in this factory,

0:45:580:46:04

'but it does make vital parts for almost half the cars in the world -

0:46:040:46:09

'shafts that transfer power from the engine to the wheels.

0:46:090:46:13

'Like the rest of the British automotive industry, GKN was struggling in the late 20th century.

0:46:130:46:19

'The Japanese didn't take over, but their influence was profound.'

0:46:190:46:25

If you look at the productiveness of this cell, in comparison to the 1970s and 1980s,

0:46:260:46:32

-we'd have had a lot of men involved in manufacturing these parts.

-Yeah.

0:46:320:46:37

This cell typically works with one.

0:46:370:46:39

'The Japanese system was all about continuous improvement, eliminating waste

0:46:390:46:45

'and creating a more harmonious working environment.'

0:46:450:46:49

-White. White machines, white equipment.

-This is about the way we organise our production facilities.

0:46:490:46:56

There's a much greater emphasis on the quality of our product.

0:46:560:47:00

We measure quality in the automotive industry in parts per million -

0:47:000:47:04

-how many rejects we have per million parts delivered.

-Right.

0:47:040:47:09

So back in the '70s and '80s, most companies were maybe in the 300-400 parts per million.

0:47:090:47:15

We're now less than... Well, we're in single digits.

0:47:150:47:19

'GKN now uses Japanese systems in all its factories throughout the world.

0:47:200:47:27

'Its fortunes have been transformed.

0:47:270:47:29

'We invented the factory for the rest of the world, but the rest of the world has refined the idea.

0:47:290:47:36

'No shame in that.

0:47:360:47:39

'As well as allowing the Japanese to influence how our companies worked,

0:47:450:47:49

'we allowed them to create a whole new motor industry in this country from scratch.

0:47:490:47:54

'Britain's biggest car maker is now Nissan.

0:47:540:47:58

'It's back to economic principles again and using the resources at hand - foreign expertise.'

0:47:580:48:06

What the Japanese did was fill in the gaps. Where we lacked talent, they provided it.

0:48:060:48:12

And, in effect, instead of going it alone, we became part of a global car industry.

0:48:120:48:17

That's been the story of our nation. We are more globally integrated than other large economies.

0:48:170:48:23

That's not great news for ardent nationalists what want to see British products with British flags,

0:48:230:48:30

but it has kept us very productive.

0:48:300:48:33

'We haven't just let foreigners show us how to make things better. We've let them invest, too.

0:48:330:48:40

'They've now bought up most of our motor industry.

0:48:400:48:43

'Jaguar Land Rover's latest owners are the Indian Tata group.

0:48:430:48:47

'Some might say our property has fallen into foreign hands,

0:48:470:48:51

'but you could say their investment money keeps falling into ours.'

0:48:510:48:56

We were fortunate that BMW purchased the company

0:48:560:49:01

and they invested a lot of money within Land Rover products.

0:49:010:49:05

Then, after BMW, Ford.

0:49:050:49:08

Ford invested another shed load of money, which was rather good.

0:49:080:49:13

And now we're owned by Tata.

0:49:130:49:16

'Our motor industry now builds about 1.3 million cars a year

0:49:180:49:23

'and contributes about 10% of the country's entire exports.

0:49:230:49:28

'Letting foreign companies and foreign techniques into Britain

0:49:280:49:32

'hasn't brought the end of UK manufacturing, but its salvation.

0:49:320:49:37

'It all adds up to a British industrial base that has learnt to focus on what it does well,

0:49:400:49:46

'dispensing with the rest. It makes perfect sense, but it raises an important question:

0:49:460:49:52

'is our manufacturing sector big enough to carry our enormous economy?'

0:49:520:49:59

It's manufacturers we mainly rely on to export.

0:49:590:50:03

So it's they who earn the money to pay for imports.

0:50:030:50:06

Given that we import far more than we export, you've just got to worry that the sector's simply too small

0:50:060:50:13

to shoulder the enormous burden it has to carry.

0:50:130:50:17

'Back at BAE Systems,

0:50:260:50:28

'our biggest manufacturer sums up British industry's strengths and weaknesses.

0:50:280:50:34

'Yes, it's high-end, lean, specialised, globally-integrated and innovative,

0:50:370:50:44

'but there simply aren't enough companies of this size.

0:50:440:50:48

'BAE has followed the UK trend, narrowing its range, exiting civil aviation,

0:50:530:51:00

'focusing on security and defence and the complex manufacturing end of it at that.'

0:51:000:51:06

It's not done with just a few bolts. It's more like micro-surgery.

0:51:090:51:13

-It's all quite delicate?

-These aircraft are hugely strong.

0:51:150:51:19

A Mini is 1.5 tonnes. You could put 63 Minis on a Typhoon wing.

0:51:190:51:24

'It's advanced, but BAE Systems can't exist on Typhoons alone.

0:51:240:51:30

'It has to keep adapting as the rest of the world catches up.

0:51:300:51:35

'So in the deserts of Australia, they've been testing the next big thing - Mantis,

0:51:380:51:44

'the pilotless reconnaissance plane that flies and thinks for itself.

0:51:440:51:48

'BAE Systems has now signed a deal with the French to develop it further.'

0:51:480:51:53

There's a really important change in defence aerospace happening,

0:51:530:51:57

perhaps ranked alongside the move in naval terms from sail to steam,

0:51:570:52:02

where we go from manned aircraft to unmanned aircraft.

0:52:020:52:07

The consequences of standing still and not actually striving to be out in front of the others

0:52:070:52:13

is simply that you lose the race and the enterprise collapses.

0:52:130:52:17

It's why we're focused on not just the next big thing, but the thing after that and after that.

0:52:170:52:24

'For now, the planes are manned, still carrying the occasional passenger like me.

0:52:260:52:33

'Now the bad news.

0:52:340:52:37

'BAE Systems generates about £4 billion of exports a year,

0:52:410:52:45

'but last year we imported £30 billion more than we exported,

0:52:450:52:50

'a huge gap that has to be plugged with yet more borrowing.

0:52:500:52:55

'Elite our manufacturing may be,

0:52:550:52:57

'but it's not big enough to meet the task at hand.

0:52:570:53:02

'So why might we have too little manufacturing?

0:53:110:53:15

'This is where we come to our role in the economy, you and I.

0:53:150:53:19

'For many years, we've been more interested in buying things than making them.

0:53:210:53:26

'In the Derwent Valley, where the Industrial Revolution started,

0:53:260:53:31

'you see the shifting priorities.

0:53:310:53:33

'This old textile mill - the plan is to convert big chunks of it into flats

0:53:330:53:39

'to buy and to furnish. And look at this other old mill.

0:53:390:53:44

'It could be fitted out as a brand-new factory, but no. It's a complex of shops.

0:53:440:53:51

'This industrial site once made oils and soaps.

0:53:520:53:56

'Now it's made way for cars, a roundabout and more homes for sale or rent.

0:53:560:54:01

'Our decision to spend rather than save doesn't just affect the landscape of old industrial towns.

0:54:030:54:09

'It has enormous consequences for our entire economy.

0:54:090:54:14

'It's our savings that pay for the tools manufacturing needs.

0:54:160:54:20

'We put money in a bank or pension, which is invested in companies that need cash for plant or machinery.

0:54:200:54:27

'The economics may be complex, but the biggest industrial nations, like Japan and Germany,

0:54:290:54:35

'save and invest a lot and manufacture and export a lot.

0:54:350:54:38

'So is this where Britain has gone wrong, saving too little?

0:54:440:54:49

'The old principle applies - economies use the resources at hand as best they can.

0:54:490:54:55

'Take away the capital for investment, you'll have less plant and machinery, less manufacturing.'

0:54:550:55:01

Funny to think, isn't it, that the amount you and I save and borrow, or that the government does

0:55:030:55:09

could affect manufacturing, but I think it does.

0:55:090:55:13

If we have our heads screwed on and know what we're doing financially, put enough aside for our retirement,

0:55:130:55:20

well, then no problem. The manufacturing sector we have is probably the one the nation needs.

0:55:200:55:26

If, though, we've been making mistakes, living too much for the present, not saving enough,

0:55:260:55:32

then there's every reason to think we've let too much manufacturing go.

0:55:320:55:38

'So what to conclude? The manufacturers I've met are all working hard to sell more,

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'but given our export gap, we'd need another 36,000 companies the size of Brompton to pay our way.

0:55:480:55:56

'It's a tall order and Will Butler-Adams feels things have to change.'

0:55:580:56:04

Without a manufacturing base, an innovative base of creating things,

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ultimately we can't sustain our economy on services alone.

0:56:080:56:12

I think we've learnt that.

0:56:120:56:14

Hopefully we've learnt that enough to change the balance of the economy to bring manufacturing back up.

0:56:140:56:21

'Britain desperately needs a boost in performance from industry and exports.

0:56:220:56:28

'It'll be a long road, but we have made a start.

0:56:280:56:31

'Post-financial crash, we're saving more and manufacturing is beginning to grow.

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'There are reasons for confidence.'

0:56:380:56:40

We have the ability, we have the mentality, we have the history, we have the expertise,

0:56:400:56:46

we're innovative, we're imaginative, we're creative.

0:56:460:56:51

We should have more self belief

0:56:510:56:53

and less doubt about what we can achieve if we put our minds to it.

0:56:530:56:59

'So yes, we need to do more, but contrary to the impression so many have,

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'we CAN manufacture when we put our minds to it.'

0:57:040:57:08

When you look at the industry in the UK, it doesn't look like the dark, satanic mills

0:57:080:57:14

with blackened-faced workers coming out at the end of a shift.

0:57:140:57:18

It's a modern, hi-tech environment, which you can't discern from outside.

0:57:180:57:24

We tend not to have been out and about trumpeting it in the way we could have done.

0:57:240:57:29

Ultimately, manufacturing is all about the physical, the cloth or the metal or machines.

0:57:330:57:39

It's incredibly important to the UK with no sign of that ever changing,

0:57:390:57:44

but if I make one observation about the factories I've visited,

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it's that all the improvements have come out of the thinking, rather than the manual work.

0:57:480:57:55

So the ironic thing is that the future of manufacturing, for all its physicality,

0:57:550:58:01

depends much more on our brains than our hands.

0:58:010:58:04

'And that's what I'll be examining next time on Made In Britain.

0:58:060:58:10

'What does innovation and creativity contribute to the economy?

0:58:100:58:15

'How can brand power and brain power help solve the nation's problems?'

0:58:150:58:20

To discover more about how Britain pays its way in the world

0:58:220:58:26

and to contribute your experiences to the Open University's online toolkit, visit:

0:58:260:58:32

And follow the link to the Open University.

0:58:350:58:38

Subtitles by Subtext for Red Bee Media Ltd - 2011

0:58:540:58:58

Email [email protected]

0:58:590:59:01

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