Industry provides 'solid employment opportunities'

Dan Rogerson MP, who has a DS Smith corrugated packaging plant in his constituency at Launceston, was speaking at a parliamentary reception hosted by the Confederation of Paper Industries.

He welcomed the solid employment opportunities the plant provides in his constituency of North Cornwall, in what he termed as otherwise quite a "low wage area".

The Corrugated Packaging Industry has a turnover of about £1.4bn and employs 10,000 people in the UK across 350 sites.

Rogerson, chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Packaging, championed the industry as facilitating other manufacturing, minimising waste and maximising recycling.

"A corrugated box can be taken off the shelf in a retailer, recycled and turned back into new paper or a new box and put back on the same shelf in less than 14 days," he said.

Following on from Rogerson, chairman of the CPI Corrugated Sector and managing director of Rigid Containers, Richard Coward said the industry has a "highly skilled workforce".

He urged the politicians present to address the skills shortage the industry currently faces, as it struggles to find the right skills base.

He suggested introducing a target of up to 25 per cent of people taking more than one science at A-level, so that the right graduates come through the industry.

In reference to competition from China and Eastern Europe where wages are much lower, he pressed the industry not to have a defeatist attitude, but to work harder and increase its efforts to make manufacturing more successful in the UK.

"If goods are not manufactured in the UK, the associated packaging will not come from the UK, so we want to see the growth of UK manufacturing" he said.