Sir John Rose, one of Gordon Brown's top business advisers, this week flung open the doors for senior politicians to learn more about Britain's manufacturing sector. However, the chief executive of Rolls-Royce is not wooing Labour but members of David Cameron's Conservative Party.

Senior politicians including Alan Duncan, Shadow Business Secretary, have been “embedded” this week at one of Britain's best-known manufacturers.

The aim, Mr Duncan said, was to “get under the skin” of British industry and understand what makes it tick, from skills and training to sourcing products, intellectual property, tax policy and planning.

During their week-long tour the politcians have visited manufacturing plants in Derby and Germany. Yesterday, Mr Duncan visited the group's £85 million production plant in Glasgow, where Rolls-Royce makes the components used in the manufacture of aero engines.

“We need to help change the view of manufacturing,” Mr Duncan told The Times. “People think it's all smokey chimneys and men in grey overalls but it's not. It's about design, technology, precision, fantastic teamwork and innovation. It's also a career for both men and women.”

Sir John, who sits on Gordon Brown's business advisory council, approached Mr Cameron and George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor, about the idea earlier this year.

Business leaders welcomed the move, which was announced last month, although trade unions were sceptical and pointed to the “catastrophic collapse” of Britain's manufacturing sector under the last Tory Government.

Sir John has made clear that he believes Britain needs to do more to nurture its manufacturing expertise. He wrote recently: “You get some idea of the speed of the resulting decline of our manufacturing base when you see that we have lost about a million manufacturing jobs in the past ten years.”

Mr Osborne said that the Government needed to understand why Rolls-Royce's most recent research and development investments were not in Britain but in Singapore, Germany and the United States.

“The reason is those governments have aggressively pursued the investment. They put in a lot of effort to attract Rolls-Royce, with local colleges set up to train people to work in the factories, they helped them find the land to locate their facilities and gave them the planning permission to build them. It's not a single thing - it's the whole package.”

The Conservative team, which includes Shadow Treasury ministers David Gauke and Justine Greening, and Shadow business minister Charles Hendry, will file a report to Mr Cameron, who plans to meet Sir John to discuss it later this summer.

Mr Osborne said that the aim was to use the lessons learnt to help to inform the party's manufacturing policy for the next general election. He said another plan was being formulated to embed Tory staff in another top British company, although he said it was too early to reveal its name.

On a Rolls

— There are more than 12,000 large Rolls-Royce jet engines in service

— The company powers 30 civil aircraft types, from small executive jets through to large passenger aircraft

— It provides about 25 per cent of the world’s military engines

Times Recommends

• Catalogue of failings ‘leaves others at risk’
• Tourists told to stay away amid Venice floods
• Google generation has no need for rote learning