Member News
By Tom Levitt MP - 24th June 2009
If we are serious about conservation and serious about employment and skills then we need to conserve such skills as well as the products they make
Tom Levitt
Labour MP Tom Levitt outlines the issues being raised in his Commons adjournment debate on the preservation of traditional crafts.
We're very good at conservation. Nature, buildings, artefacts - we pride ourselves at being in touch with our heritage so we invest in making sure it is done properly.
That means, amongst other things, that we train those people who build and repair buildings or conserve environments to acquire the skills that they need.
But what about the artefacts? Where are the skills of the future going to come from to keep these ancient traditions alive?
Mike Turnock, my constituent, has a workshop in Whaley Bridge. He has a one man business buying in materials, using equipment designed for his purposes and producing wholesome, attractive, long-lasting yet economically viable garden sieves.
Mike is perhaps the only person doing this today, though in his father's days the business employed four people and had three competitors within the valley. Such sieves made of beech have been around for a thousand years.
Today Mike supplies sieves to garden centres in a couple of regions of England, food grade sieves where necessary and bespoke varieties to cockle gatherers and a dwindling number of factories which need to separate new rivets from sand.
The last of the sieve makers lives just a few miles from the last of the professional pole lathe bowl turners. A few miles further is the last manufacturer of handmade scissors. Mike is 64. The chances are that his business will die when he retires.
There are costs to having apprentices and not all of these are met by government schemes. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has welcomed the government's Future Jobs Fund as providing great opportunities for training and employment in 'the creative industries'.
But do sieve makers, besom creators and thatchers feature in that?
Often called, misleadingly, rural crafts, these skilled artisans would be a sad loss were they to disappear from our landscape. There is a market for hand made commodities, useful household implements and niche craft products but without tailored support from the centre their creators cannot exploit it.
If we are serious about conservation and serious about employment and skills then we need to conserve such skills as well as the products they make. I await the minister's positive response with anticipation.
Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd