MTA Campaigns

MTA supports new SEMTA funding

The MTA will lend its support to a new series of grants from SEMTA aimed at helping employers in engineering and manufacturing technologies to train their workforce. Over £65m has been made available by the Government for this exact purpose. To find out more please click here.

MP's visit MACH 2008

MPs from both the Labour and Conservative Parties visited MACH 2008. Ian Pearson MP, Minister for Science and Innovation opened the show on Monday 21 April and Alan Duncan MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Business visited on Thursday 24 April. Both gave speeches full details of which can be found in the links below:

 Ian Pearson MP speech (Pdf)
Alan Duncan MP speech (Pdf)

New Ministers in a restructured Government

Gordon Brown restructured his Government in what we believe at MTA is a positive way. At the new Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform the three principle Ministers MTA will deal with are: the Rt. Hon. John Hutton MP, Secretary of State, Digby, Lord Jones of Birmingham, Minister for Trade Promotion and the Rt. Hon. Stephen Timms MP, Minister for Competitiveness with responsibility for Industry and Manufacturing. Take a full look at the Ministerial Team at DBERR with their biographies.

At the Treasury the new Minister with responsibility for Industry is Economic Secretary Kitty Ussher MP who formerly worked with MTA Parliamentary Adviser, Lord O'Neill. View her biography on the Treasury website.

MTA President, Geoff Lloyd, has written to both John Hutton and Lord Jones welcoming their appointments.

download copies of both letters

Export Licensing Seminar

At a recent seminar at the MTA it was shown that although the situation in obtaining an export licence has improved considerably in recent years, changes in the export licence controls have had considerable implications to many companies exporting or manufacturing in many non-EU countries - especially in the area of dual use and end user. In particular, countries such as China, India, Brazil and Russia which are heavily promoted as key target high growth markets are equally seen as higher risk countries and subject to increasingly complex licensing controls. However the team from the Export Controls Organisation, led by their Director, John Doddrell were very open to helping companies who were experiencing Export Licence control problems.

Download a copy of the DTi powerpoint presentations from the seminar here:

The UK Strategic Export Control Licensing Process
Export Licensing First Impressions and Priorities for 2007-08
2007 Review of Export Control Legistlation

The ROHS Directive - UK interpretation of scope
 
The imminent implementation of the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (ROHS) Directive on 1 July and the lack of movement by the UK enforcement agency, the National Weights and Measures Laboratory (NWML), on their guidance for what should be included in the scope of this Directive, has led us to put down three Parliamentary Questions to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in the name of our Parliamentary Adviser, Stephen O'Brien MP.  MTA believes the current NWML guidance, at: http://www.rohs.gov.uk/FAQs.aspx, would wrongly lead to a proportion of fixed industrial manufacturing machinery being included.  We believe this goes against the spirit of the original intent of the European Commission in bringing in this Directive.  We are backed up on this by ORGALIME, the European Engineering Industries Association representing the interests of the Mechanical, Electrical, Electronic and Metalworking Industries, whose published guidance on the exemption from the legislation for "Large scale stationary industrial tools" was seen as representative of the Commission's views.  We also know that other European Governments are implementing the ROHS Directive along the ORGALIME lines and therefore the NWML position would in effect create a UK barrier to trade. The significance of the interpretation of the ROHS Directive is even greater as the WEEE Directive, which is waiting a UK implementation date, has a similar scope.
 

Parliamentary Questions

Mr Stephen O'Brien (Eddisbury): To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, what assessment he has made of the compatibility of the interpretation and implementation of the Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive in the UK with that in (a) Germany, (b) Spain and (c) other European Member States; and what assessment he has made of the extent of a risk of an illegal barrier to trade being created.

Mr Stephen O'Brien (Eddisbury): To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, what assessment he has made of the published guidance by ORGALIME, The European Engineering Industries Association representing the interests of the Mechanical, Electrical, Electronic and Metalworking Industries, on the scope of products included in the Restriction of Hazardous Substances and Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directives; and whether the European Commission informed him that it has accepted this guidance.

Mr Stephen O'Brien (Eddisbury): To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, whether the National Weights and Measures Laboratory's proposed guidance on the Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive will bring into its ambit a significant proportion of fixed industrial manufacturing machinery; what assessment he has made of the extent to which the proposed guidance will conform with the EC's original intention for the Directive not to include large-scale stationary industrial tools; and whether the proposed guidance will expand on the requirements of the Directive.

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