On Thursday 29th April, the APMG met to elect officers, vice chairs, co-chair, and chair of the group. This was also an opportunity for parliamentarians to provide their feedback on the proposed work programme for the upcoming year and considered additional themes for the programme.

This meeting was attended by Parliamentarian members. Those attending reviewed the group’s current officers and elected Jack Dromey MP as chair and Mark Pawsey MP as co-chair. The following were elected as vice-chair: Lord Bilimoria CBE DL, Jonathan Reynolds MP, Baroness Burt, Barry Sheerman MP, Drew Hendry MP and Baroness Kramer. Baroness Warsi was also elected in as an officer.

The APMG will be meeting later in the year with associate members to decide a direction for the programme after a consultation with all members.

The proposed themes for the upcoming year were:

• Sustainable manufacturing – building back from the pandemic to achieve net zero goals across the sector
• Energy Intensive industries and their road to net zero
• The current trading environment for UK manufacturers – to feed into international trade committee inquiries
• Smart manufacturing, digitalisation, and automation
• Circular economy and supply chain resilience
• Manufacturing Commission – future skills, equality, diversity, and inclusion

Officers noted that focusing on youth employment within COVID was an important theme to explore within manufacturing skills/reskilling, as well as the ensuring focus on gender diversity within equality, diversity, and inclusion discussions.

Invitations for the upcoming events programme will be shared with APMG members in the coming weeks.