WIP0004
Written evidence submitted by Wales Centre for Public Policy
The Wales Centre for Public Policy
- The Wales Centre for Public Policy (WCPP) seeks to improve policy making and outcomes by enabling public bodies, the Welsh Government and other decision makers to access authoritative independent evidence to help them address the key economic, social and environmental challenges facing Wales.
- WCPP is funded by the Welsh Government, the Economic and Social Research Council, and Cardiff University. It is a member of the What Works Network.
- This submission summarises research we have undertaken that bears on the topic of the Committee’s enquiry and to reflect this we have focused on questions 2 and 3 where we are substantively able to contribute. This research includes evidence reviews based on academic and ‘grey’ literature, as well as data collected through interviews with experts and workers in key industries.
Question 2: How has deindustrialisation shaped socio-economic conditions in Wales today?
Question 2a: What does access to the labour market look like in former industrial areas of Wales that were once centred around heavy industries?
- Wales’ economic and human geography are still shaped by the legacy of industrialisation and prior economic transitions: large urban and peri-urban areas in South Wales developed around coal extraction and heavy industry (especially steel), and in North Wales settlements and the landscape have been heavily influenced by slate mining (Healy, 2019). Labour demand and industrial structure tend to reinforce each other in areas like the South Wales Valleys. While Wales has largely transitioned away from a resource extraction-based economic model, manufacturing remains a proportionally larger part of the Welsh economy than in the rest of the UK (Henley, 2021). This includes carbon-intensive industry such as liquid natural gas terminals and oil refineries in Pembrokeshire and steelworks in Port Talbot and Newport, and fossil-fuel powered vehicle and aeroplane manufacturing. Wales has a number of local authorities where such carbon-intensive employment is concentrated.
- There have been disparate impacts of deindustrialisation across different places and populations with unique challenges for rural and peripheral regions, sectors with large emissions, and low-skilled workers. Areas disproportionately impacted include Neath Port Talbot, which has the highest percentage of workers employed in heavy industry of all UK local authorities, Tables 1 and 2 (Wallace-Stephens, 2021). These areas are also disproportionally impacted by economic inactivity, discussed below.
Table 1. Employment in emissions-intensive heavy industry: selected local authorities in Wales
Local authority | Percent employed in heavy industry | Employment in heavy industry | Rank in GB (out of 387) |
Neath Port Talbot | 8.7% | 4,355 | 1 |
Flintshire | 3.0% | 2,250 | 12 |
Vale of Glamorgan | 2.3% | 970 | 17 |
GB total | 0.54% | 166,000 | n/a |
Source: Wallace-Stephens (2021).
Table 2. Employment in vehicle manufacturing: selected local authorities in Wales
Local authority | Percent employed in vehicle manufacturing | Employment in vehicle manufacturing | Rank in GB (out of 387) |
Blaenau Gwent | 4.7% | 900 | 8 |
Merthyr Tydfil | 3.0% | 700 | 13 |
Bridgend | 2.8% | 1,600 | 15 |
Torfaen | 2.4% | 900 | 19 |
Carmarthenshire | 2.2% | 1,600 | 20 |
GB total | 0.5% | 156,400 | n/a |
Source: Wallace-Stephens (2021); SMMT (2021).
- Nearly 70% of UK sectors have been impacted by the negative economic shocks of Covid-19 and/or Brexit, and it is important to consider these alongside the impacts of previous and ongoing deindustrialisation. Both Covid and Brexit had a substantial impact on the labour market and led to increased unemployment rates, presenting similar market and labour challenges to industrial transitions. Sectors negatively impacted by Brexit include the agricultural and food, automotive, steel and manufacturing and tourism sectors, and areas where they are geographically concentrated, which risks compounding the existing negative effects of large-scale deindustrialisation. It also has had large implications for sectors reliant on imports and exports, reflected by traffic levels coming through Holyhead, Fishguard and Pembroke docks. The labour market result has been shortages of workers in some industries across the UK but also workers being unable to find jobs (Tilley and Roberts, 2021).
- Socio-economically, sectors such as motor vehicle repair have historically been an important source of employment for groups such as young men from working class backgrounds (Watkins, 2022). These sectors have often had low barriers to entry allowing those without formal qualifications to maintain employment. Deindustrialisation therefore risks increasing inequalities; highlighting the importance of a policy response that aims to ensure a just transition, discussed below.
- These sectors are also affected by increases in economic inactivity, brought about by temporary or long-term mental or physical ill health, retirement, caring responsibilities, or being in full-time study; causing labour market shortages. The most common reason for economic inactivity for both males and females in Wales (including students) is long-term sickness, accounting for 34.9% and 32.5% of economically inactive males and females respectively. The figures from the Annual Population Survey report that in the year ending June 2024, 20.6% of the working age population (excluding students) were economically inactive in Wales (compared to 17.8% in the UK). This represents a 0.2% decrease from the previous year. Mid and South West Wales are reported to have the highest economic inactivity levels, and North Wales to have the lowest (Welsh Government, 2024). There is considerable variation in economic inactivity levels between regions in Wales. Regions in Wales that have historically had higher levels of inactivity (e.g., Blaenau Gwent, Merthyr Tydfil), still do so today, whereas other areas (e.g., Vale of Glamorgan) have lower levels of economic inactivity compared to the Welsh average (WCPP, 2024).
- This compounds the labour market challenges arising from deindustrialisation as lay-offs from declining industries resulted in economic inequality and a legacy of disability and long-term ill health. These patterns support the need for place-based interventions.
Question 2b: How effective have UK Government policies and funding interventions been in responding to the consequences of deindustrialisation in Wales?
- Improving population health is part of the solution to address the consequences of deindustrialisation, but there are range of additional factors including wider social factors (for example, availability and affordability of transport and childcare, job opportunities in different regions). Therefore, policies need to adapt a whole-system approach to effectively minimise economic inactivity. This can be difficult within governments where ministers have separate priorities, alongside the challenges of coordination between UK government and devolved governments. However, recognition within government that labour market participation should be considered when designing, reviewing and evaluating different policies is important.
- Collaboration between organisations in Wales and the UK government have been important in addressing policy challenges in this area. For example, prior to the pandemic, Public Health Wales were involved in a partnership with unions, employers, occupational, allied and primary care health professionals and the Department for Work and Pensions and other stakeholders to develop a multidisciplinary programme of work to support those with long-term health conditions stay in work. The partnership was suspended during the pandemic and has not been reestablished since, although it remains an important issue for which to collaboratively find solutions (WCPP, 2024).
- In response to labour market challenges during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Welsh Government extended the Apprenticeship Employer Incentive Scheme. The scheme included several incentives to support employers to recruit apprentices, which resulted in 5,500 new apprentices between August 2020 and October 2021 (Welsh Government, 2021).
- Policies that create clusters of new industries within regions can promote innovation and generate new employment opportunities for workers in declining industries. A successful example in Wales is the compound semi-conductor cluster established by the UK government funded Cardiff Capital Region City Deal. The development of the cluster was intended to ‘lever £375 million of private sector investment, create up to 2,000 high-skilled jobs, return the investment for use on other regional schemes, and create hundreds more jobs in the wider supply chain cluster’ (Office of the Secretary of State for Wales, 2017). Across the South-East Wales region, further education and higher education institutions have worked closely with industrial partners to design courses (from Business and Technology Education Council qualifications to post-graduate courses) aligned to the needs of the cluster (Cardiff Capital Region, 2022). Evaluation of the cluster showed an increase in research and development and innovation activity linked to universities (Cardiff Capital Region Cabinet, 2020). In its first year, the semi-conductor site provided employment for an average of 84 construction workers every week; the majority of the workers were from firms based, or with offices in, CCR, and therefore has supported regional workforces (Cardiff Capital Region, 2019). Enhanced networks and linkages both in and outside the region has attracted investment in the area, including the location of teams from global compound semiconductor firms as well as over £40 million Strength in Places Funding (Cardiff Capital Region Cabinet, 2020).
- The Social Partnership Council, formed through the Social Partnership and Public Procurement Act, aims to facilitate collaboration by bringing together employer and worker representatives, and the Welsh Government in quarterly meetings to discuss issues such as fair work, AI in the workplace and equality and diversity. This forum has the potential to incorporate lessons from previous industrial transitions that may be relevant for Wales, whereas previously the UK government’s exclusion of unions and mineworkers in South Wales in favour of commercial interests was detrimental to the success of structural adjustment policies (Sheldon et al., 2018; Silva et al., 2022).
Question 3: Is deindustrialisation an ongoing process, and how might it affect Wales’ role in the UK Government’s growth mission?
Question 3a: What part will heavy industry play in the future of the Welsh economy, and what support could the UK Government provide?
- Wales retains a proportionally strong industrial base and despite highly-publicised recent closures there are sound economic and political reasons to maintain and improve this. For instance, the restoration of primary steelmaking capability is important for geopolitical and strategic purposes. Deepwater ports such as Milford Haven offer opportunities to develop maritime industry including offshore energy generation.
- In Wales the availability of capital has been an historical constraint, although the establishment of the Development Bank of Wales has more recently facilitated SME access to finance (Henley, 2021). Opportunities through the National Wealth Fund or by facilitating access to private finance could support private and public sector investment in industry or in ensuring a just transition.
- In the development of energy infrastructure, Wales is limited by its lack of direct control over aspects of the energy system. For instance, while it has consenting powers for onshore developments under 350MW and all wind power projects, larger-scale projects and offshore generation are not within its devolved competences. This means that Wales is dependent on actions at a UK government level to deliver things like new nuclear power, and on the Crown Estate for offshore developments. This is particularly important for the transition to a green economy given the need to rapidly scale-up construction of low- and zero-carbon electricity generation capacity (Price, 2023).
- Energy infrastructure is also limited by the fact that control over the grid is reserved. The Welsh Government are already working with NESO and Ofgem to upgrade grid capacity in Wales, which is a critical limiting factor for new infrastructure particularly in rural areas. However, while the Welsh Government lacks direct levers to act, devolving the energy transmission system is unlikely to be an easy or desirable solution to this barrier (Regan, 2023). Co-ordination between the Welsh and UK governments; and between governments, the ESO and the regulator, will be important to ensure that infrastructure can be developed and delivered in appropriate haste.
- A barrier to development is the current planning system. While the Infrastructure (Wales) Bill aims to speed up the process of consenting for major projects, we believe there are further lessons which can be learned from other countries to streamline and simplify the planning process, in line with UK government ambitions (Notman and Price, 2023). For instance, the Netherlands has simplified its offshore planning process so that sites are pre-selected, grid connections and projects are authorised before they are put out to tender for construction. This has increased the build rate of energy infrastructure while reducing risk for investors. The UK government could support and co-ordinate change so that changes do not inadvertently create new administrative hurdles across other levels of the planning system in Wales and the UK.
- A concern is the future of existing industries and their supply chains, and whether they will be able to adapt to changes in their industry. For instance, the automotive industry currently has a large supply chain within Wales (Johnson et al., 2020). This includes small- and larger-scale manufacturers. However, with changes to car production resulting from the shift to electric vehicles, there is a risk that actors within the current supply chain may neither have the skills nor ability to retool production.
This is particularly relevant for roles such as car mechanics as electric vehicle engines operate differently from petrol engines and require different skills (including the use of computer-based diagnostics). If barriers to entry are raised, for instance through requiring new qualifications, this could limit a prominent source of employment for young men from working-class backgrounds (Silva et al., 2021). Furthermore, this pattern will be exacerbated if the costs of retraining fall mainly on workers themselves (Watkins, 2022)
- Raising barriers to entry, would also have the potential to disrupt or replace an existing small business ecosystem within Wales. Therefore any changes should be accompanied by direct support for reskilling, as well as indirect support to encourage participation including providing affordable, accessible and flexible transport and childcare and ensuring that other factors such as access to social security benefits continue (Skeels, 2022).
- Given the continued challenge of a high proportion of adults in Wales having low qualifications and adult participation in further education and adult community learning declining considerably in the past decade it is important to ensure that vocational and work-based learning is made available to affected workers (Pember et al., 2021; RCU, 2021).Schemes such as the Apprenticeship Employer Incentive Scheme have continued relevance in supporting the skills base as well as action to tackle barriers to learning for people with lower levels of formal qualifications. Such barriers may include institutional (campus accessibility, course schedules), situational (caring responsibilities, poor health, shortage of time and money), informational (lack of information about the educational opportunities available), or basic skills barriers (Pember et al., 2021).
- Another risk is if demand for younger skilled workers comes at the expense of a large proportion of the existing workforce, which may increase unsustainable short-term and precarious jobs. For example, skilled workers may be recruited at scale for the installation of infrastructure, but then become unemployed when it is installed, with only a small proportion of that workforce being required for maintenance (Notman et al., 2023).
Question 3b: How could Wales best manage transitions to digital and green economies without exacerbating socio-economic inequalities?
- WCPP has carried out extensive work on the ‘just transition’ and the ways in which the transition away from carbon-intensive industries can be managed in a way that avoids exacerbating existing inequalities (Lesch, 2020; Price, 2020; Price et al., 2021; Morgan et al., 2022; Silva et al., 2022). Achieving this will require ongoing partnership working between (among others) the Welsh Government, the UK government, private sector industries and public bodies.
- The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 offers a framework through which the requirements of a just transition can be embedded in the governance of Wales, in particular by focusing on long-term impacts; sustainable development; and the well-being of citizens in Wales (Price et al., 2021).
- However, developing a governance framework for a just transition does not by itself guarantee that a just transition will take place. Specific interventions and concrete actions will be required throughout the transition to ensure that, where areas and individuals are affected, the effects of these are minimised. In practical terms, this will mean assessing and planning for where shifts in employment are likely to happen, in particular industry closures or redundancies, and putting place measures to counteract these changes.
- It will be important to assess the current workforce’s skills and future skills needs to ensure that retraining and reskilling opportunities are relevant and meet industry demand. There is some evidence to suggest that private investors have withdrawn investment due to factors such as a lack of emphasis on skills development in South Wales (Wagner, 2021). Tackling these skills shortages is likely to require interventions including providing incentives for apprenticeships and skills development (Chapman and Kiberd, 2021). Development should start in schools, which will be important given the relatively poor academic performance of students in ex-industrial areas in South Wales (Wagner, 2021) School and post-compulsory education curricula should, therefore, encourage and facilitate the development of new skills (Future Generations Commissioner, 2020; Pember et al., 2021). For instance, this can be encouraged by vocational streams starting earlier in school progression and employers actively engaging with them (Jones, 2019).
- The Welsh Government and Business Wales already have some resources in place that may be used to assess current skills, future skill needs, and provide effective training or upskilling opportunities. There are also opportunities for the Social Partnership Council, discussed above, to pursue this agenda.
- The economic geography of the transition will be a key consideration in this area. Green industries will not necessarily be situated in similar locations to the industries they replace: for instance, renewable energy generation is not likely to occupy the same footprint as existing gas-fired power stations, and some digital employers are likely to situate themselves in existing urban areas or near high-capacity grid connections.
- Renewable energy offers opportunities for rural Wales where new industry and ancillary industries and services could develop through the transition. This could be encouraged, particularly through social value procurement and/or encouraging community-owned energy generating assets.
- For existing workers and areas currently dependent on industry however, there is a less optimistic picture. With the closure of blast furnaces in Port Talbot, for instance, programmes retraining and reskilling workers are necessary but not sufficient to mitigate the employment and well-being effects this will have. To allow workers to move to skilled, well-paying jobs with as much esteem as steel working, businesses could be incentivised to site themselves close to closing or transitioning industries. This could include preferential access to workers as part of the transition arrangement alongside other incentives and initiatives such as the Celtic Freeport. Funding for these interventions is likely to be beyond the resources available to the Welsh Government and may require support from the UK government, such as has been the case in Port Talbot.
- This will require bold, strategic thinking and a commitment to connect businesses sited in traditional industrial sites with ‘new’ industries, with the UK government; Welsh Government; local authorities and bodies such as Ofgem and NESO needing to work in partnership.
- However, no just transition measures will feel just if they are not accompanied by meaningful dialogue and input from affected workers. The politics of recognition are important alongside efforts to distribute opportunity more fairly, particularly where job losses are possible (Price, 2020). The need for active, collaborative dialogue has been highlighted by recent political controversies in Wales.
- Policy responses in other transitions were more effective in supporting workers and communities where local and regional impacts were considered. Identifying areas at high risk from the transition and anticipating associated skills and investment needs will involve effective data collection and engagement with public and private actors at a local and regional level. Policy responses need to be inclusive and involve coordination across industry, unions, skills institutions and local communities, providing tailored and localised support (Silva et al., 2022).
- Without any intervention, the market will dictate the changes within industry and in education and skills provision that are needed to reach net zero. This would be an undesirable outcome: it may result in certain industries leaving Wales and to the offshoring of future emissions, and it would reduce the potential for economic growth and development in Wales.
- Against the context of past economic performance, economic geography and local political economy; the creativity and strategy of leaders operating within the local governance structure is critical (Tilley et al., 2023). The interplay of economic institutions, leadership and networks is an important enabler of private sector capital, which in turn is required for the investment and innovation needed to develop the green economy.
References
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30 January 2025