Harold Wilson's 'white heat' speech has never mattered more

As we gather in Brighton for Labour's Annual Conference this week, Britain faces a cost of living crisis – on average people have taken a £1,500 pay cut since the Tory-led government came to office. The Tories think we can succeed through a race to the bottom on skills and wages. But as Ed Miliband has argued, the only way we're going to build a strong economy is to make sure it works for working people. We need fewer low wage, low skill jobs and more high wage, high skill jobs.
It was from another seaside town almost 50 years ago that Harold Wilson made his now famous 'white heat' speech. He ended it with a rallying cry that still rings true, "we must use all the resources of democratic planning, all the latent and underdeveloped energies and skills of our people, to ensure Britain's standing in the world."
The need for a highly skilled workforce dominated Wilson's programme of action: produce more scientists, retain more scientists and make better use of our scientists. In 1963, he highlighted that Russia was "training 10 to 11 times as many scientists and technologists". Today many of our global competitor countries are recognising the importance of research, innovation, and skills to their citizens and economies – and are investing accordingly. And while it's still true that we produce far fewer graduates in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) than our international competitors, it's not just the numbers that matter. In 2011, 41% of degrees awarded in China were in science and engineering, compared to just 22% in the UK. Although some question the quality of this boom in Chinese STEM graduates; a 2005 McKinsey report found that just 10% of Chinese engineers are educated to a "global standard". But you can bet that our 22% will beat the odds and punch above their weight on the global scientific stage, despite being outnumbered and increasingly outgunned in investment. The quality of our graduates remains high and our culture of innovation runs very deep indeed. It's an edge we need to keep fighting to maintain. Of course it's not just universities that will supply us with the highly skilled workers we need. Wilson said "there is another thing we have got to do in the field of higher education, and this is to put an end to snobbery". We must recognise and promote the value of alternative pathways to careers in STEM such as the vital role of further education in addressing the urgent shortage of technicians. Ed Miliband has talked about the need to fix these pathways and it has become increasingly clear that both higher and further education need to work together to make that a reality. Many of the science events I will take part in at conference this year will focus on the life sciences – a sector in which we are a world leader. I will hear from medical research charities about the need to ensure research is at the heart of the NHS and from industry about the barriers they face in trying to collaborate with our research base. These collaborations drive innovation and we must enable their success with nimble decision-making and funding processes. Wilson's speech captures the excitement and inherent possibility of science, "we are living at a time of such rapid scientific change that our children are accepting as part of their everyday life things which would have been dismissed as science fiction a few years ago." The pace of scientific change hasn't slowed since 1963. We might still be waiting for jet packs but the widespread use of driverless cars and augmented reality is closer than ever and Wilson's sentiment remains true. As he said, "Unless we can harness science to our economic planning, we are not going to get the expansion we need." I couldn't agree more. And while the narrative may have shifted from economic "planning" to smarter inward investment and strategic government action, the central role of science in driving an economy that works for working people remains the same. Fifty years on, the legacy of Wilson's "white heat" call to arms has never mattered more.

Shabana Mahmood is member of parliament for Birmingham Ladywood and shadow minister for universities and science

This post is one of a series to mark the 50th anniversary of the speech. The speech itself can be found in full here. On 1 October, the speech will be read out by an actor at a special event at the People's History Museum in Manchester