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Ed Miliband MP, Leader of the Labour Party, in a speech at the EEF National Manufacturing Conference in London, said:

It is great to be here with you today.

And I want to start by thanking Terry Scuoler, your CEO, for his leadership of the Engineering Employers Federation and Martin Temple your chair.

Thank you to both of you for what you do for the EEF.

And most of all I want to congratulate you: the backbone of business in Britain.

Making, inventing, selling.

Creating wealth and high-skill, high wage jobs for the people of this country.

And you have done that despite the most difficult and challenging circumstances in recent years.

And when I look around this room, and when I go round the country, I am struck by the success stories that we don’t talk about enough.

Just last week I was at BAE.

And it was truly inspiring to meet their workforce and management.

Working together and helping Britain lead the world in aerospace engineering.

And I also had the chance to go to JLR in Wolverhampton to see the fantastic work they are doing in developing new engine technology.

The envy of the world.

Skilled workers, earning decent wages, working with management, having turned round a company in trouble.

These are just two stories of success.

And there are many more.

So I want to congratulate all of you for everything you do for this country.

Three years ago I came to this conference and told you I have always believed in “Made in Britain”.

And since then we have listened and I have learned from your members and from many others in British manufacturing.

And I know together we have one shared mission:

All of us want to build a prosperity that starts with your businesses and reaches the kitchen tables of working people right across the country.

To do that we need to be a more productive country.

Creating good jobs at decent wages.

And no sectors are more central to that than manufacturing and engineering.

Over the years since I came to speak to you we have developed our plan.

And I believe it echoes so much of what is laid out in the “Manufacturing Britain’s Future” report that you are launching here today:

Finding workers with the right skills.

Getting finance from the banks when you’ve got a new idea or are just starting out.

Being able to influence the key decision-makers that matter to your firm.

Having infrastructure that you can rely on.

Being engaged members of a reformed European Union, as part of a drive for exports.

And to these I would add something else:

You need a government that would champion the needs of engineering and manufacturing.

And today I want to explain how I believe we can do this.

Our plan to extend prosperity to all starts where it has to: with our young people.

To build the economy we need in the 21st century we need all of our young people to be developing the skills necessary to compete in the world.

But we’re just not doing that right now.

Engineering UK tells us:

We will need to train 160,000 engineers a year to meet the demands of businesses like yours.

And, as you have told me, in the 21st Century that means not just traditional civil, mechanical and electrical engineers, but also engineers in the sectors of the future that Britain should be leading in:

IT, green energy and life sciences.

But today we are producing far fewer than we need.

If the trend continues over the next five years we will be faced with a shortfall of over 400,000 engineers by around 2020.

Depriving our country of wealth creation and our young people of opportunity.

We must turn this round.

To do it requires more than a different policy.

It needs a different way of doing things.

Based on this idea:

Not on training and education for some of our young people, but training and education for all of our young people.

In vocational and not just academic qualifications.

Turning round a decades-long problem of the failure to recognise that both matter to the future of our country.

And to address this problem, we have laid out a plan for vocational education in our schools.

A new gold standard baccalaureate.

So our young people know what they are aiming for.

Work experience returned to the curriculum.

Maths and English until 18.

Because people need to know the basics.

And when it comes to university expansion, focusing on new technical degrees at our universities.

Overturning the idea that there is an iron curtain between vocational and academic education.

And all this leading to high-quality apprenticeships.

Businesses like yours often lead the way in apprenticeships and training.

But still the number available for young people is falling right now.

We will change that by giving businesses like yours more control over the funding.

And asking every firm that wins a major government contract to deliver apprenticeships to the next generation.

And every firm recruiting from outside the EU to do the same.

Our 10 year aim, our shared mission as a country, must be to ensure that as many young people leaving school at 18 go on to an apprenticeship as go into higher education.

And over five years we will guarantee a high quality apprenticeship to every 18 year old who gets the grades.

Good for them.

Good for our businesses.

And good for Britain too.

So our plan for the economy starts with a new plan for our young people.

But it doesn’t stop there.

You tell me, and you are right, that the jobs of tomorrow will come from a large number of small businesses, not simply a small number of large ones.

And it is by helping our small and medium sized businesses today they can become the large businesses of tomorrow.

As today’s launch of “Lean Academy” - your plan to help small firms - shows.

And our plan recognises it too.

The tax regime for large businesses matters and we have pledged to keep corporation tax the lowest in the G7.

But my priority for tax cuts will be to help smaller firms.

So to help those small businesses grow, we will cut and freeze business rates.

An average saving of £400, much larger for those with bigger premises.

But of course, helping those small firms to create the good jobs of the future is not just about business rates.

It is about finance.

It is about addressing another decades-long problem of a finance sector that does not properly serve small and medium sized businesses.

And the answer lies in reforming our banking system.

A banking system that is, in my view, not competitive enough, not responsive enough and not supportive enough of engineering and manufacturing.

That is why we will have a market share cap to ensure better competition in business banking on the high street.

And a new British Investment Bank, which you have helped us to design, with a network of new regional banks, lending to businesses in each region.

Skills, a competitive tax regime and access to finance all matter to you and matter to creating a shared prosperity.

They are all part of our plan.

But what is important also, is recognising that the wealth and jobs of our country are unbalanced in where they are created.

We need a thriving London but we need to recognise our historic weakness in creating prosperity that is broadly shared across Britain.

I believe we are too unbalanced in our prosperity because we are too centralised in where decisions are made.

So many businesses tell me of the frustration of trying to get a decision made locally, only to discover that the power is hoarded in Westminster or Whitehall.

Again, it has been a problem for decades.

Now, for us as an opposition, the easy thing would have to been to reverse the policy of Local Enterprise Partnerships and revert back to Regional Development Agencies.

But that is not our plan.

Because of the disruption it would cause.

Instead building on LEPs we have been more ambitious.

We’ve developed a comprehensive, not a piecemeal, plan for devolution of power and resources.

Devolving funding worth at least £30 billion over five years including in key areas such as transport, skills and business support.

With businesses like yours right at the table, making the decisions, alongside elected representatives.

But just as we need to change the culture of where decisions are made, so too how they are made.

I understand you find that the short-termism of politics often gets in the way of long-term decisions.

Firms like yours rely on our infrastructure as a country.

Our roads, rail, broadband.

And you need it to be the best in the world.

Our plan on the deficit recognises the importance of long-term capital investment.

We will cut the deficit every year.

And balance the books.

But as part of a balanced plan, which also protects investment in the future.

But it is not just the resources we put in, it is how we make decisions.

We know the pattern of decision making in our country: decisions on infrastructure put off and off.

That’s why we will establish an independent National Infrastructure Commission, following the recommendation of Sir John Armitt, to hold government to account and stop long-term decisions being delayed and delayed.

And seeking to take the infrastructure decisions out of the short-termism of party politics.

So these are our plans.

Based on giving you the tools to succeed and help our country create shared prosperity.

But you operate in a harshly competitive world.

I am conscious so many of you are exporters, including as part of the single market.

Martin Temple is right today to warn of the dangers of sleepwalking to exit from the European Union.

The EU needs to reform: to reflect better the needs of business, to have a budget that is spent more sensibly and to have fair rules on immigration.

But my party is clear: our place lies inside not outside the European Union.

Some people believe there is short-term political gain from flirting with exit.

But there is no greater threat to the long-term stability and prosperity of Britain and British business than leaving the European Union.

That is why it is so wrong to play fast and loose with our membership of the European Union.

I want to be clear: I reject that course.

It is not in our national interest.

It is not in the interest of British families.

It is not in the interest of British business.

It is the wrong course for our country.

So here are the foundations of our better economic plan:

A new plan for all of our young people.

Support for all businesses, not just the largest.

Thriving towns and cities in every part of Britain.

Making the investments we need in our future.

The long-term view that our country needs.

Championing engineering and manufacturing.

All built on solid economic foundations, balancing the books.

In 70 days’ time, the election will be upon us.

I understand that while some of us are in the thick of this campaign, some of you watch and wait.

I want to give you this pledge:

If I am Prime Minister after May 7th, I will champion your cause.

I believe we owe our citizens decent jobs at good wages.

And you are fundamental to that future.

I believe we owe our young people opportunities to get on.

And we can’t do that without you.

I believe we need to pay our way in the world and export.

And your role is essential.

And I believe manufacturing and engineering are the wave of the future.

Not simply the pride of our past.

I dare say if I am Prime Minister we won’t always agree.

But you will always have a voice.

We will always listen.

We will always engage in dialogue.

And we will always strive to work together.

Our future depends on it.

Our future depends on you.

And that is why it is such a privilege to talk to you today.

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