Nissan in Sunderland

Debate between Lord Sterling of Plaistow and Lord Henley

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Con)]

My Lords, in April last year the percentage of people buying diesel cars was 70.2%; it is now precisely 31%. That answers most of the questions today. Nissan is a very fine company. We have wonderful engineers in this country but if I were the chairman of Nissan today, I would have made exactly the same decision, which is most sensible. We will catch up when we have agreements in the future with countries such as Japan.

[Lord Henley]

I am very grateful to my noble friend for underlining what has happened to diesel sales, which is obviously a major factor in the decisions in this matter.