It is time for the Government to deliver on a straight forward but successful manufacturing strategy.

What we must not have is another saga, where we tell the world we are ready to act, but very little happens.

The Government has announced innovation centres, a regional growth fund and a green bank. We must make these steps simple, and most important of all, we must actually make them happen.

It always seems to be the case that whenever the economy is in trouble, governments turn to manufacturing for the answers. I remember ministers talking about ‘sunrise industries’, the ‘knowledge economy’ and ‘high value added manufacturing’. Recently, the sound-bite was ‘industrial activism’. Now the phrase is ‘the balanced economy’.”

Today, manufacturing’s share of British GDP is 12 per cent.

That is a touch less than France and within striking distance of the Americans.

Much of our recent growth is due to rising exports in goods. Jaguar Land Rover is one of the largest exporters in the country – £6 billion each year. Exports to China are up 70 per cent. Yet the UK’s impact in emerging markets remains tiny, a mere one per cent share of Chinese imports.

It is not sufficient to compete with emerging economy manufacturers; instead British industry needs to be partners with them in the global economy.

I would focus on two areas.

First, we must encourage inward investment. The latest figures show the British economy still suffers from low rates of capital investment, as it has for fifty years. If small manufacturing enterprises are to be the seed bed of innovation, full exploitation of their ideas requires investment from larger firms.

However, we have too many barriers to inward investment. The corporate tax system is confusing. Measures like tax credits are hard to access. Regional support is baffling. And immigration rules send the wrong kind of signals.

Next, we need to understand that trade barriers will exist for a while yet. For example, China’s tariff on imports of saloon cars is more than 40 per cent. This is an extremely high barrier to get over. Most companies will end up manufacturing in growing markets, just to get a level playing field. So we must help them find partners to get access.

We are a gateway to Europe, but we need to be a partner to the world.

* Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya is the founder of Warwick Manufacturing Group