Introduction

This first Engineering Assembly marks and historic day for the engineering profession of our country. For the Engineering Council has now come of age. Its period of direct Government funding has come to an end. The Council's support in the industry and in the profession is now securely founded. And the Government's confidence in the Council, right from the beginning when we backed the Finniston Report, has proved well justified. [end p1]

The Council set itself a formidable task. —To bring home to the people of this country that the success of the engineering profession and industry is the key to our future prosperity. —To ensure the right education for our engineers of tomorrow. —To inspire the best of our young people, men and women, to join the profession.

Engineers are vital to the UK economy generally

Mr. Chairman, your remarks and those of your [end p2] Director-General were optimistic about the future. You were right. A hundred years or so ago our prosperity depended on the talents of our engineers.

When we look at some of those great engineers of the past, Stpehenson, Brunel, Royce, Morris and de Havilland, they were not only great inventors, they were men of commerce and men of vision. They founded and created new industries. They didn't wait for an economic boost. They were the boost. As it was then, so it is now—in our much [end p3] more competitive world. If business is to survive and flourish, engineers like you have to design and create tomorrow's products, today; have to be hungry for business.

If we are not, the market places of the world will shut us out.

And it is engineers who can and will keep our industries a step ahead of the rest. Your work can be described as “problem solution” . So can mine. It's just that the problems are a bit different.

Change—Security

Mr. Chairman, no century has seen more change than [end p4] this. The next may and probably will see even more. Our forefathers rose to the occasion in their time. We must do so in our time.

We all want security, but the key to a secure future is not to think of sticking at today's jobs, but to be ready to anticipate change and boldly to use it to our own advantage. Change is not the enemy of security. It is the means of achieving it. [end p5]

Some of our industries are succeeding magnificently: —Oxford Instruments with their powerful magnets for NMR whose sales grew from less than £1 million in 1972 to almost £60 million last year, [who exported 85 per cent of their output, who generated profits of over £9 million and who created 500 new jobs in the last five years.] —UEI (United Engineering Industries) group where the Cosworth Grand Prix engine of the 1970s became the basis for world leadership in cylinder head technology in the 1980s. —Quantels television products where 85 per [end p6] cent of production is exported. —ICI with their Pruteen plant, pioneering commercially successful biotechnology. —Jaguar, successfully privatised this year, whose sales and exports quality have improved dramatically. —North Sea oil production, where the partnership between outstanding engineering and private sector risk capital, have created a massive new industry in a decade. —The chemical and pharmaceutical industries which are world beaters, right out in front, and their exports prove it. [end p7]

In some cases a scientific breakthrough provides the impetus to launch a new product or a new technique. As in the way our scientists have brought new medical instruments, undreamt of a few years ago, to the service of our people as a whole.

But so often new products emerge, not from a scientific leap forward, but from established science transformed into new products or new processes by imaginative design and first class engineering:- the float glass process; the video tape recorder; the microwave oven; the compact [end p8] disc; the modern typewriter; the paperback; polythene and the whole world of plastic film and packaging—all products which have brought a large measure of prosperity to Britain. As the encyclopaedia puts it, the function of the scientist is to know. The function of the engineer is to do.

The Importance of Manufacturing Industry

MT noted this point: “Add Eng. Edn” .

Mr. Chairman, too often the pundits glibly classify our growth industries as “sunrise industries” , “service industries” , the “high-tech sector” . All those easy labels where we are told our [end p9] future lies.

But, industry can't be put into separate compartments like that. After all, some of the biggest consumers of high-tech are our traditional manufacturing industries. Look for instance at the application of computer aided manufacture to textiles, clothing, footwear, cars, and so on.

And I know, Sir Francis TombsSir Francis, how your own Company, Rolls Royce, has automated its manufacture of jet engine wheels and discs to reduce manufacturing lead times to a quarter of [end p10] their old levels; reduce unit costs by 20 per cent; reduce work in progress to a third of its old level. Mr. Chairman, such changes may initially reduce numbers employed. But if industry does not become efficient there is no future for any of its employees.

Not only are manufacturing companies among the biggest buyers of high-tech but the service industries are major purchasers of manufactured goods. Tourism—with its requirement for cars, buses, aircraft, computers. Hotel and catering—with its requirement for [end p11] furniture, kitchen equipment, electrical goods. Finance—where electronic technology has created worldwide currency markets. Television—where the equipment to receive and produce enables us to create the concert hall and cinema in our living rooms.

So engineering, manufacturing and the service industries go hand in hand.

The key to this partnership is the ability of gifted engineers to use their talent and training to create a market opportunity or radically improve a manufacturing process. [end p12]

And that requires both an entrepreneural skill and the intellectual ability to go with it.

Universities

The West Midlands is fortunate in its bank of intellectual capital. Its universities and polytechnics prepare some of our brightest young people for careers in industry.

In a great manufacturing centre the challenge is to invest this intellectual capital in the [end p13] future of the industries of the region.

And the links between industry and the Universities are getting stronger.

Aston Science Park, set up in 1981, a £25 million joint venture between the City Council, Aston University, Lloyds Bank and the City Council, already can boast of 25 companies, making long life cutting tools, energy efficient boilers and “sonic pens” which turn an architect's drawing into a list of materials to do the job. [end p14]

Birmingham University is setting up an Institute of Research and Development to spread the benefits of high technology and medical research into products for British industry.

Warwick University not only has 30 companies in its own Science Park, but its Engineering Department has a major partnership with Computervision in computer aided design. In conjunction with Coopers & Lybrand, it has set up a centre specifically designed to help existing industries improve their competitiveness. [end p15]

This is the story in the West Midlands. But commercial and profitable joint ventures between companies and Universities and Polys are happening all over the country.

Government's Role

Now you will ask what can Government do to help.

Only the entrepreneur has the flair and expertise to create market opportunities.

Ministers in Whitehall can't do that.

Our role in Government is quite different. [end p16] —to make it worthwhile, once again, for entrepreneurs to take risks. —to create a society where wealth creation and profit-making are respected as the rewards of successful enterprise.

We've started to get the burdens of Government off the backs of industry: —controls on prices, wages and dividends gone; —exchange controls gone; —National Insurance surcharge gone; —many regulations and bureaucracy gone.

We have legislated to encourage responsible and [end p17] democratic trade unionism, with an increasingly positive response from the public and private sectors.

We are fighting to make the European Common Market the reality which its architects envisaged: —so that the products of successful British enterprise can compete on fair and equal terms in Europe; —so that European companies can emerge to challenge America and Japan in the technologies they currently dominate.

And the Government is supporting 4,000 extra [end p18] engineering and science places in universities and polytechnics, provided those places are relevant to the needs of the market. Industry itself will be providing lecturers, equipment and money. This is a real partnership between Government, industry and the universities.

Jobs

Of course, the creation of jobs must remain this country's, and indeed Europe's, biggest challenge. Quack remedies are peddled on all sides— [end p19] boost demand by printing money, subsidise and protect, grab control of investment for the State. But quick fixes don't lead to sturdy independence. They just produce subsidy-addicts.

Prospects

I am often asked about business prospects. I can't predict where the industries of the future will come from. Any more than any of us could have said 25 years ago how many people would be employed in 1985 [end p20] in the products, services and businesses which were not available then—video films and software, cancer screening, cheap air travel, fast food and, of course, the micro revolution.

Not even the great inventors of the past foresaw the potential of their innovations. Edison thought that his phonograph would be useful to record deathbed statements. He did not foresee its vast entertainment potential.

Wireless telegraphy was expected to be useful where wires were out of the question—between [end p21] ships, for example. Who could then foresee the telecommunications industry as it is now?

Oil was introduced for lighting and cooking, in kerosene lamps and stoves. Who then foresaw the petrochemical industry? [end p22] Prediction has not become any easier. But just as we did not lack ideas in the past, we do not lack them now. What I will promise you is that the Government will stick to the prudent financial policy which has brought inflation down and which will bring it down still further, and to the taxation policies which give incentives to create the wealth of tomorrow. Then new industries will continue to emerge and thrive. [end p23]

Conclusion

Mr. Chairman, it is for Government to create the right background conditions. But it is you engineers who can grasp the opportunities and make our future prosperous. I am here today for one reason. To show the importance this Government attaches to your work, your profession and your role in our future. Our country's success needs you.

[end p24]

QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION

Squadron Leader John Richardson, Royal Air Force and S.W. Region

Madam,

Could we ask you to indulge in some more technological forecasting and give us the benefit of your views on the position of the engineering profession post-1988 and into the 1990s?

A special comment is ought on the need for statutory registration of engineers and our status and the numbers of registered engineers you expect to see post-1988.

Would you also comment on a statistic released just this morning on the 6 a.m. Radio 4 programme which was something of the order—I think I have got the decimal place right—of 0.0093%; of the total income revenue from North Sea oil has been used in supporting research and development, in exploration and exploitation of future fields in our areas. Surely this cannot be the level of investment for a secure way ahead?

Thank you, Madam.

Prime Minister

Now, you are asking really to get the crystal ball out. Yes. Well, crystal balls tend to be very uncertain and I am going to say to you that the numbers in your profession in the future will depend upon your success in the present. I cannot predict that. I do not think anyone can. This is exactly why I indicated that many of the successful engineers in the past who created our industries were not only engineers; they were entrepreneurs. They were men of commerce; they were men [end p25] of vision. It is not enough just to have the one aspect.

All right! If we have got half a dozen like that in the audience who are going to build big new industries, that is fine. They will employ a lot of other engineers. Of course, we have also to remember that a lot of the development today is much more the result of a large team of people, but they still need the entrepreneur.

So I am going to say: over to you! Over to you, because one of the troubles in this country today is that people still expect Government to do things which only the people can do and which only enterprise can do, and I hope you will succeed. I hope you will be colossally successful, because success brings its own prestige, and I will tell you this: if you succeed, I do, so I have a very vested interest in your success.

Now, you then turned … as far as I am concerned your status is tops, that is what … that is why I am here …

Now, you turned to North Sea oil development and you make, if I might say so, a false antithesis when you say how much has been ploughed back into research and technology.

North Sea oil is one of our great industries and like any other of our great industries it provides revenue to keep the great services which only the State can carry out—the defence, the law and order, the basis health service and the education service, all of these have to be provided from money which ultimately comes from enterprise, and the North Sea oil of course is a very great contributor.

I must say, I wish the resources of energy beneath the soil, like coal, contributed as much to the Exchequer as the [end p26] resources of oil below the North Sea do. Then I would be very very much happier—and I hope one day it does, but please do not set North Sea oil as something apart. It is an example of great engineering, an example of great enterprise which contributes enormously to our present prosperity and our future.

Of course, we need to do more research and technology, but we need to look at what we are doing, seeing that some of it is fruitful as far as our industrial success is concerned. We also need to continue to do, which is why we have Research Councils, fundamental research through the universities, through the Research Councils, because you never know what you are going to discover. I mean, many many of our industries have come discoveries which have come from putting money into pure research. That will continue.

As far as investment is concerned, last year investment in industry, in actual fixed assets, was £55 billion—an all-time record. I hope it will go on that way. (applause)

…   .Maynard, North West

Prime Minister, as we have heard, the pump-priming money from Government has now ceased and the Engineering Council is standing on its own feet. You will have seen from yesterday's “Times” —as our Chairman mentioned this morning—how successful the Council has been in securing support of its industry.

Will you now insist that Government Departments who are employers of engineers and technicians should follow the excellent lead given by industry and subscribe to the Engineering Council? Thank you. (applause) [end p27]

Prime Minister

Are we invited?

Chairman

Here and now, Prime Minister!

Prime Minister

First, I am very glad that you are standing on your own feet, because if people are not standing on their own feet they are standing on someone else's toes—not the Government's. The Government has not got any money.

I will have a look at it. I will have a look. I am told we are invited to do so. I will have a look at it. (applause)

Colin McCarthur, East of Scotland

What efforts are the Government making to see that there are more engineers in the higher administrative ranks of the Civil Service, particularly those who have experience in the world of industry and commerce?

Prime Minister

It is very difficult to get engineers and scientists to come. In my Private Office, I always have one scientist—I have got five secretaries, each covers a particular aspect of Government work—I always have one scientist but that is because I am me and I have a scientific qualification and of course, I also have, as you know, Sir Robin Nicholson who is quite outstanding, as a Government Chief Scientific Advisor, [end p28] absolutely outstanding. It is not easy for us to get engineers and we do try to get more scientists in. Still more difficult is it to get those who come in late from industry and commerce. The most successful ones, of course, probably have greater prospects in industry and commerce than we can offer in the Civil Service. But if we get more people trained as scientists and engineers, really as an alternative to some of the things which they have regarded as mind training in the past, and with a view to coming into administration—because good administration, a good Civil Service is extremely important to the smooth running of the country—and I would like to have people who have taken their training in science and engineering coming in, particularly in DTI, but also in other Departments of Government. So we try and I just hope that more in fact …   . if we get more trained, you know, through the universities, we might have enough to come in, but I would also like some who have been in industry for a time. Now and then we have them seconded to a particular Department for a particular task and very valuable they are, not only for the expertise they bring in, but for another reason: they bring in a commercial approach to those whom they work with who otherwise never know what a commercial approach is, and that is important too. We will make the effort, but we have got to provide some more engineers who are willing to do that. [end p29]

Dr. Clive Killick, Mechanical Engineer, Central London

You have constantly in Government explained the need for long-term thinking and strategic planning. Would the Government consider altering the Companies Act to ensure that more companies take up the leadership given by the Engineering Council and publish the details of their technological achievements as part of their Annual Report?

Prime Minister

Well, frankly, I am not keen to do so. I will tell you why. The more regulations I put on industry, the more I tie them up. But on the whole, you know, when they have got technological achievements, they are not slow at proclaiming them. Obviously, they do not wish to proclaim their industrial secrets for others to take.

But I do not think it will help if every meeting I go to I am asked for another set of regulations to compel companies to include in their report. If they are good at marketing, they will be shouting it from the house-tops anyway, and if they are not good at marketing then I do not think that they will have Annual Reports for very long! (applause)

Gordon Blair, Northern Ireland Representative

Would you describe yourself as being satisfied or content or whatever word you would care to use with the present arrangements for providing and then deploying the necessary resources into university and/or polytechnic engineering departments? I am thinking really of the structure and the resources getting into the places required. [end p30]

Prime Minister

I think what you have in mind is am I satisfied with it, because patently it is not producing the results we want at the moment in the number of scientists and engineers who are coming out of the system. It is not, and one of the reasons is that we have not got enough good science and mathematics teachers in the schools to get the youngsters up to the required standard for coming into (applause) … I mean with both good qualifications and good at teaching. The two are not always synonymous. You need to have them both.

Now, we are particularly losing some of the mathematicians to the computer industry and some of the good science teachers elsewhere, and what we really have to do and what I would like to do is where we have shortages like that, is to pay those particular teachers more, because I think it is important to educate our children (applause). I am very glad to have your support, because right there I come slap up against the unions who say you cannot pay the shortage professions more and then pay the others the same. Well, that is not really how we shall get the requisite engineers and scientists.

Now, sometimes I may have to say to you: will you let us have some people from industry to go into the schools and do the teaching—into the school, a day or two a week? It would be very good. Again, it would also get a commercial element into education. So that is one blockage.

The other problem has been this: you know that the universities, in the way in which they use their money, are independent through the University Grants Committee. A mathematician is the Chairman of the University Grants Committee, [end p31] Peter Swinnerton Dyer, and he is very conscious of the need to get more youngsters into universities and to get an increased number of scientists, technologists and in particular engineers through the system.

We have all been trying to do that. So far, we have never given directions to universities. We have said to them: Please, we want an increasing number on the science and engineering side, an increasing proportion, and now we have, through selective grants, given grants as I indicated, for specific purposes.

The dons have absolute tenure and when we had to reduce some of the expenditure which was getting very large, unfortunately some of the universities let some of their best engineers and technologists go, because it was the easy way. What I think to that is probably not appropriate to say at this particular meeting and in this particular location, but I think when the country gives those enormous sums—about £3 billion—to higher education, I do think we have a reasonable expectation that they should be able to produce for us the people upon whom our future depends. After all, we cannot give them that wealth unless you create it. So as you know, we are now giving selective grants and working with industry to get the extra people we need.

So, no, we are not satisfied with it, but I would rather work through the system and get the cooperation of universities and make them see the need. The Government has no money. We only get money from the wealth-creators and if they do not turn out more people who can create wealth and who have an entrepreneurial flair as well as a training, we will not have the money to pile into the universities or the money for [end p32] our prosperity, so we will go about it trying to get their cooperation, and I think we are succeeding, and I am sure that Sir Alex might have something to say about it at lunchtime. (applause)

John Sampson, Southern Echo

Prime Minister, many of us feel that it is unfortunate, not to say dangerous, that there are so few professional engineers in the House of Commons. There are a few more in the Lords.

I think the two reasons are that, unlike many other professions, we are predominantly employees in full-time important and engrossing jobs, so that spare time to get involved in politics is not available to us. Secondly, many engineers, I think, have an in-built dislike of party politics.

My questions is that in your view, what are the specific things that the engineering profession could do to encourage more qualified engineers to stand for Parliament so that perhaps even they might get into the Cabinet one day?

Prime Minister

Nick Ridley, Secretary of State for Transport, is an engineer. I think he is the only one I have got in Cabinet.

Well, the question is whether you are prepared to take the risk and the chance. I am sorry you do not like getting involved in party politics. It makes me wonder why I am here! But you should, you know, because the country is going to be governed by one political philosophy or another and you have to make up your minds whether you want it involved [sic] by a philosophy of free [end p33] enterprise or one of less free. So that is your choice and you are free to make it.

I will tell you what to me is one of the real problems. You would expect successful engineers to have a very considerable professional career ahead of them. To risk coming into Parliament means that you give up those prospects for a job which by its nature is uncertain.

I had a very difficult task to perform yesterday, very very difficult indeed, when I had to say farewell from Cabinet and from office to some very great friends with whom I had served together, not because they have not done their job well—they have done it superbly—but to make room for more coming up the ladder.

So all of a sudden you might find you are without a considerable income and all of a sudden at an election, if you are in a marginal seat, you might find yourself without an income, and this obviously makes a number of people think very carefully. Others put their whole life into politics and pursue it, and I think the only way, if this great Assembly would like more, is for a few companies to say to people who would like to come into Parliament: “Right, it is in the interests of the profession that you stand for Parliament, you get yourself adopted. We will continue to employ you!” and then it has a double advantage. First, we get more of you in, but the person regularly has duties to perform in the industry and regularly keeps in touch with the latest developments, because nothing is more dangerous than someone who knew a particular profession twenty or thirty years ago and still looks at it through those eyes. [end p34]

So I think it is a matter for you and for your employers to take up, because that is the only way in which I can think that you can marry the two things—your desire to have a very considerable prospect in your own professional future and make those available in the House of Commons. We do our best, as you pointed out, to see that they are available in the House of Lords. So again, it is over to you, and you will have to like party politics if you are going to get in! (applause)

Phillip Booth, Central London Region

It has often been said in this country that the status of engineers is lower than in other countries, and one might quote Germany and Japan as examples. Do you think this is so and what do you think are the main reasons for these statements about the status of engineers?

Prime Minister

I thought I was going to get this question and I pondered how I should reply to it, because I wonder why you are so worried about status (applause, hear hear). I do not think Stephenson, Brunel, de Havilland, Morris, were worried about status. I do not think they needed to be.

I think status comes from success and I do not know, I do not find lawyers worried about status, or accountants, and I do sometimes say, you know, … I did get very worried at one stage when the universities were doing business courses and everyone went for corporate planning and some people like me said: unless the engineers are successful, you will not have anything to [end p35] corporate plan! And that, I think, is now fully recognised.

Look! I come to make it clear that I think that your profession is one—perhaps the most—important in the prosperity of our country, but I can only tell you that I have learned from politics if people get too worried about status they do not get on with the job ahead and it is from doing that job that they will get status and prestige (applause)

Ralph Connolly, Electrical Engineer, from the local midlands section

I would like to answer the Prime Minister's question why I am worried about status, and I would like her comments.

The Prime Minister made a great play, and I support it fully, about improving the quality of the youngsters who come into engineering. We are talking about creating supply. You have to create demand and unfortunately it is perhaps one of the things where accountants, lawyers, are not worried about their status—they have it or it is perceived—and there is demand and people are queueing to get into the profession.

In our local Committee Minutes which I received there is a statement that there is a reduced demand for engineering places at this university this year. Now, perhaps the Chancellor might disagree with that. But if that is the case, we are creating more places and I would like a comment on that. Thank you. [end p36]

Prime Minister

I think if you listened earlier, you would have found the answer you are seeking. The reason why we have not got more young people going for engineering in universities is we have not yet got the right training in the schools to enable them to qualify.

There are far more, I agree, coming up with arts qualifications. The disciplines of science are much much more rigorous and we are short of some of the right teachers in the schools.

I do not think that where great universities put their emphasis on engineering—Birmingham has done it on chemical engineering for years—that you have any lack of status. We do have lack of supply of the right fundamental qualifications coming up from the schools into the universities and to some extent it will also depend upon the universities, again, boosting the importance of engineering in their region. However much they boost it, they cannot get the young people in until we get some more of the right teachers.

We have tried to indicate the importance of scientific training and the importance of getting computer thinking into schools. I cannot think of another country in the world who is as fast off the mark as this Government was on getting micro-computers into every secondary school and now into almost every primary school and in making the courses available, but before you can in fact fill the courses already available in universities, we do have to get. I am afraid, better training of the right kind in the schools. It is not a status problem. [end p37]

David James, South West Region

My colleague mentioned statutory registration of engineers. Could I draw the Prime Minister back to that point and ask her views on the desirability of statutory registration of engineers as recommended in the Finneston Report?

Prime Minister

I really prefer the profession itself to have its own particular standards and to do its own registration. Do you know, everyone wants statutory registration! We shall become a country of statutory registered with such a big bureaucracy doing statutory registers. I would much prefer the professional qualifications to be in the hands of a chartered body like this one.

Geoffrey Williams, London Central

I am sure, Prime Minister, you will be only too well aware of the cost of remedying some over-hasty attempts to minimise the first cost of building some ten or twenty years ago, and this morning we have heard a lot about the importance of the design process. Now, in the construction industry it seems to us that there is an increasing pressure from some Departments to minimise the expenditure on design itself, even to the point of getting design appointments by competitive tendering for the lowest tender and of course cost-saving short cuts can be taken in design without jeopardising safety, but I wonder whether anyone in Government is thinking that perhaps in ten or twenty years time these low-cost cheap designs might not lead some future [end p38] government into similar very expensive problems? (applause)

Prime Minister

That is certainly not the philosophy of the present Government and if you have got any examples please let me have them, because I am most concerned—indeed when some of our companies tender for big international contracts, sometimes I have to be very sharp and say to other governments: “Look, ours will not be the cheapest, but you have got to look at value for money, because you might find it is best value for money!” I do have arguments of that kind because we here do look for best value for money, and in best value for money you have to take into account not only the initial capital cost but the likely maintenance cost within the coming ten, fifteen, twenty years. You are perhaps thinking about roads. Perhaps it would have been better had we done different things then, but of course, the volume of traffic on the roads often far exceeds that for which the road was designed, but value for money. And in taking value for money into account, you must look at the maintenance costs over the coming period of years. So I am absolutely with you on that.

What I also have to watch is that a Department or particular industry or particular defence does not want gold-plated everything, because value for money means the best value to do that job and not always added value which is not necessary for the successful, efficient prosecution of that particular work. So if you have got any particular examples, do let me have them! (applause)