Manufacturing Post Brexit

Lord Allan of Hallam Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I know that the noble Lord is very expert in this area, and we have discussed it before. We need to do all that we can to encourage life science investment; the UK has one of the most successful life science sectors in the world. We need to make sure that investment continues to flow into this country, and we want to use all the policy levers open to us to make sure that that success story continues.

[Lord Allan of Hallam (LD)]

My Lords, why does the Minister think that UK car production has fallen to its lowest level since 1956? Do the Government have plans to invest in particular in the charge point infrastructure that will be needed for the UK car industry to make a successful transition to electric vehicle production?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The noble Lord makes a good point. We need to do lots of things to help us on the journey to electric vehicles. Charging infrastructure is an important point. We have very ambitious plans to invest in thousands of new chargers, which are being rolled out. We already have one of the largest charging networks in Europe, but we need to do an awful lot more. In addition, as I mentioned, encouraging gigavolt battery manufacturing plants in the UK is particularly important. There is a lot that we need to do to support our electric vehicle plans.