Stellantis Luton

Debate between Baroness Foster of Oxton and Baroness Jones of Whitchurch

Thursday 28th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for those points. As I said at the outset, we very much feel for the people of Luton—this is a terrible time for them. My noble friend is quite right that this is not just about the people who are directly employed in the sector; it has much wider ramifications. At the end of the day, these are commercial decisions, but we are working very closely with Stellantis on how the consultation is dealt with and what support can be given to those affected. There will be the opportunity for some people to transfer to Ellesmere Port, but we understand the impact that this closure will have on the remaining population.

The Government recognise that Luton is a vibrant and very diverse community that has ambitions for the future. We are already investing £20 million in the Stage mixed-use development to help unlock Luton’s town centre regeneration plans, so we are looking at what wider support we can give. In the meantime, it is absolutely right that we focus on those who are affected now, and that we give them support through both the Department for Work and Pensions and further negotiations that we will have with Stellantis, to make sure that we provide the maximum protection for those affected by this decision. However, I will not underestimate the challenge of this, and my noble friend is quite right to raise it. I am sure there will be further discussions about what else we can do.

[Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)]

My Lords, this is the tip of the iceberg of the obsession this Government have with their punitive net-zero targets. I agree with the noble Lord opposite. I visited Vauxhall Ellesmere Port as a former Member of the European Parliament. I was closely involved with the car industry. As the noble Lord rightly said, this is not just about the 1,100 workers at the Luton plant. They will all have families and people to support, so there will be at least 4,000 people affected just from that plant alone, and that is without the thousands of others who work at the small and medium-sized manufacturers that supply that plant—and that is aside from the vast local economy. That figure of 1,100 at Vauxhall that the Government, and even the newscasts, keep emphasising is very much understated.

Therefore, I ask the Minister: what exactly have the Government put in place to deal with this? Clearly, the trade unions are vehemently opposed and the TUC is opposed—I had a look at the Morning Star, by the way—and I think we would all be extremely interested to know. I ask the Government to start to rethink clearly the consequences of this obsession with these targets that, in my view, are totally unrealistic and will damage the future of this country.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

As I said, we will provide whatever support we can to the people affected. We are talking to Stellantis about how we can identify these individuals and what support they need, and we stand ready with the Department for Work and Pensions to provide accelerated support and help to them. I challenge the noble Baroness’s concern that we should step back from our progress on rolling out electric vehicles, which is part of our net-zero ambitions. I think everybody understands the need for us to meet our net-zero ambitions, which are very important for this country and our climate but also for delivering green jobs for the future.

As we set out in the manifesto, we will support the transition to electric vehicles by accelerating the rollout of, for example, charge points. That ambition was supported in the Budget and was confirmed with £200 million for an accelerated charge point rollout next year. We are working closely with industry stakeholders to promote positive messages around electric vehicles and improve consumer confidence in the public charging network, so there is a lot that we can do to carry on promoting the use of electric vehicles.

Those who have electric vehicles respond with a very positive view of their ownership, so they are popular when people purchase them; we just have to persuade people to make that transition when they purchase new vehicles. As I say, that is important for our climate change ambitions and for jobs in the future. We believe there will be more jobs in future based on the rollout of electric vehicles.