Budget let-down

I don't suppose I am the only engineer to feel completely let down by the recent budget.

At a time when many industries are crumpling under the strain, all we seemed to get were some pledges to support green industries, as though they are going to solve all our problems, and a half-baked scheme to subsidise new car sales, most of which will be made abroad and almost all of which are the products of foreign-owned car companies.

This was nowhere near enough to convince me that the government is either willing or able to turn this economy back to a productive stance based on engineering and manufacturing.

In my reckoning, we have about 10 years to get our house in order or be left behind forever as the millions of engineers being trained in China and India get into their stride.

Many of the brightest and best of those would-be engineers are coming to the UK to study. When they return to their own economies, they will leave with the knowledge they have gained here and proceed to make us, quite literally, redundant.

Colin Smith, Nottingham