The Covid Recovery Commission calls for a ‘Great British Supply Chain’

The philosophical basis of global trade is being challenged as many international supply chains fractured during the Covid-19 crisis. Many are complex; a dose of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine, for example, requires 280 components from multiple countries, according to the company.

Currently about 80-95% of trade is carried by sea. Two million merchant seamen deliver a wide range of goods, ranging from oil, gas and iron ore, to grain, fresh fruit, medical supplies, TVs and automobiles.

The Covid Recovery Commission is a group of business leaders headed by John Allan, Tesco chairman, who also chairs Barratt Developments. They are advising the Government to support certain British industries post-Covid by using state procurement to create a Great British Supply Chain.

“The UK should use its post-Brexit freedoms to create domestic supply chains that rely less on foreign companies . . . It may sound like turning the clock back, but it is necessary. There are great advantages if you have short domestic supply chains – you can be much more flexible and respond more quickly to changes in demand.” John Allan.

The industries would include those decarbonising public sector buildings, rolling out 5G connectivity in the NHS and investing in modern methods of construction including off-site manufacture. By spreading prosperity nationwide, the private sector would then make use of the extra capacity to follow suit, for instance by decarbonising old homes as well as new buildings. 

The capacity to invent, produce and distribute domestically is vital (Andy Haldane, chief economist, Bank of England, writing in a personal capacity)

The Covid Recovery Commission stressed the importance of training, infrastructure and local economic plans “to support the creation of new globally competitive industry clusters in every part of the UK by 2030,” drawing together businesses, universities and different levels of Government.

The Suez accident, which held up an estimated $9.6bn of goods a day according to Lloyd’s List, also drew attention to the fragility of tightly stretched global supply chains which are already being buffeted by a pandemic.

Farms not Factories reflects that it was another example of the chaos caused by long food chains.

200,000 animals were feared to be likely to die in the tail-back at both ends of the Suez canal, which could have been the worst maritime animal welfare tragedy in history. Visible results of the current Brexit chaos and the Covid pandemic also included suffering livestock on overcrowded lorries and rotting meat at the UK/EU border. 

In an April newsletter, Tracy Worcester warns that – unless we change course worldwide towards more local production for local consumption – global supply chains serving corporations will continue to be vulnerable to unplanned but inevitable events such as price fluctuations, transport delays, interruption of processing capacity by pandemics and crashes in the financial system.