Adam Thompson speaks on his new role as Chairman of APPFIG, and how he hopes to navigate the challenges facing the industry.
Congratulations on your appointment as Chairman of APPFIG. What does this role mean to you personally and professionally?
It’s a great honour to be chosen as chair of the APPFIG. In my constituency, Erewash, furniture manufacturing is a key part of our industrial heritage but is also very much alive and active in both of our major towns, Long Eaton and Ilkeston. About ten years ago, Long Eaton was recognised as the UK centre of quality upholstery manufacturing, and it hosts the brilliant Longpoint exhibition every spring and autumn which brings together all kinds of upholsterers and furniture manufacturers from all across the country. The furniture industry is such an important matter for Erewash that my predecessor as its MP, Maggie Throup, was also my predecessor as APPFIG chair. I’m really proud to have been entrusted with this role, and I hope I can do my best for our great manufacturers and local workers.
What are the immediate priorities for APPFIG under your leadership?
What’s so great about the all-party parliamentary group is that it brings together MPs from different parties, to all work together in the shared interests of our constituents and Britain’s incredible furniture manufacturers. It is our job to cut across party lines and make sure things are working for these important businesses in our constituencies, so they can remain at the cutting edge and internationally competitive, both now and well into the future.
I would like to see our upholsterers and furniture-makers protected, promoted, and set-up to succeed. Part of what I like so much about the industry in my constituency is that, while it is really important for our local heritage, it’s a living, breathing industry. Highly-skilled and hard-working artisans have been making the finest furniture in Erewash in our beautiful Victorian mills for well-more than a century, and I hope in a hundred years or more’s time that can still be said.
The furniture industry faces various challenges, including regulatory changes and international competition. How can APPFIG help navigate these issues?
The APPFIG puts all MPs for whom upholstery and furniture manufacturing is significant in- touch with one another in a way we simply wouldn’t be otherwise. If an MP knows the manufacturers in their constituency are having a problem, they can bring it to us, and if it’s happening to more of us, then we know it’s a broader issue that requires action as a group. I know APPFIG has in past had serious discussions with government as proposed regulatory changes, completely well-intentioned ones, would inadvertently have seriously impacted our furniture manufacturers.
In this parliament, we’ve had really good discussions about things like Jonathan Reynolds MP’s emerging Modern Industrial Strategy and the Product Regulation & Metrology Bill, a substantial piece of government legislation which I take a very keen interest in, both as chair of this group and as the first ever metrologist elected to the House of Commons.
Looking ahead, what longer-term aspirations do you have for APPFIG and the UK furniture industry?
I would like to see us forge a strong narrative around our incredible British upholsterers and furniture manufacturers. That narrative is really important, to keeping manufacturers competitive and relevant in such a dense and fast-moving international market. Our artisan furniture-makers, with honed skills and years of experience make the best quality furniture around. They do things with an exceptionality and elegance that Ikea and giant Chinese factories can’t match.
One thing I really notice, and that business owners in my constituency regularly raise with me, is the demographics of their workforce. The workforce skews male, and is particularly older – as of right now, they aren’t getting a lot of young people coming into the industry. Before I was an MP I was teaching manufacturing engineering to apprentices in Nottingham, so I know how transformational these skills can be in getting a young person not just a job but a good career. I’m a massive fan of Webs Training, an apprenticeship provider in Beeston who teach the next generation of furniture-makers, and we need to be pushing these kinds of apprenticeships to make sure this industry can exist and thrive long into the future.
