BHETA has welcomed today’s Government announcement outlining new measures aimed at supporting the long-term resilience and competitiveness of the UK ceramics industry.
The announcement, published by the Department for Businessand Trade, recognises the significant pressures facing energy-intensive manufacturing sectors and signals further Government backing for industries regarded as strategically important to the UK economy.
The Government statement can be viewed here
Important recognition for ceramics manufacturing
BHETA believes the announcement represents an important acknowledgement from Government of the challenges facing UK ceramics manufacturers following an extremely difficult period for the sector.
Over the past 18 months, ceramic manufacturers have faced severe pressure from:
- Exceptionally high industrial energy costs
- Ongoing global market uncertainty
- Competition from lower-cost imports
- Rising operating and employment costs
- Wider geopolitical disruption impacting oil and gas markets
The situation has been particularly acute for ceramic tableware and giftware manufacturers, where energy-intensive kiln firing processes mean that gas and electricity costs form a major part of production expenditure.
Recent developments involving UK ceramics businesses, including the widely reported situation at Denby, have highlighted the seriousness of the pressures facing the sector and the risk of losing valuable UK manufacturing capability and specialist skills.
BHETA support for industry campaigning
BHETA has been actively supporting the ongoing lobbying efforts led by Ceramic UK, including calls for:
- Fairer access to energy-intensive industry support schemes
- Recognition of ceramics as a strategic foundation industry
- Reform of eligibility criteria that currently exclude many ceramic tableware and giftware manufacturers
- Longer-term industrial competitiveness and decarbonisation support
BHETA has also written directly to Government in recent weeks urging faster and more targeted intervention following mounting evidence of distress across the sector.
**|READ THE LATEST BHETA LETTER HERE**
The association has argued that ceramics manufacturing differs significantly from many other sectors because of its dependence on continuous, high-temperature kiln firing processes, making energy costs unusually difficult to reduce or avoid in the short term.
Positive step — but members will want to see detail
While BHETA welcomes today’s announcement as a positive step, the association notes that members will want to understand:
- How quickly support measures will be implemented
- Which sectors and businesses will qualify
- Whether ceramic tableware and giftware manufacturers will now gain meaningful access to relief
- How support will compare with measures already available to other energy-intensive sectors such as steel
BHETA will continue engaging with interested parties and members as further details emerge.
Steve Richardson, BHETA General Manager, commented: “Today’s announcement is an important recognition by Government that the ceramics sectorfaces exceptional pressures and requires support. BHETA has consistently argued alongside Ceramics UK that ceramic manufacturing is uniquely exposed to high energy costs and that many businesses have unfairly fallen outside existing support schemes. We welcome the direction of travel and will continue pressing for practical, meaningful measures that help preserve UK manufacturing capability, skills and investment. Particularly well done to the team at Ceramics UK who led this campaign.”
Further engagement
BHETA members with concerns or experiences relating toenergy costs, manufacturing pressures or ceramics sector support are encouraged to contact the BHETA team directly.
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