Gareth Thomas
Main Page: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)Batteries for Electric Vehicle Manufacturing
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Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his statement. Although it has been thrilling for all of us to hear it, I would not want him to be under the impression that he can make these statements only in Westminster Hall. He can apply for time in the main Chamber, and that may be something he wants to consider for the future.
Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
I commend the Select Committee for its work, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) for the way in which he introduced the Committee’s report.
One issue, I want to touch on, which the report rightly highlights, is the looming cliff edge in the trade and co-operation agreement, with much tighter rules of origin for electric vehicles from 1 January. As I understand it, Ministers have still not set up a key working group on automotive parts, which was agreed in the TCA. That group could have helped industry to get heard a lot earlier and in its understandable call, backed by the Committee, for a three-year extension to the current rules of origin. Ministers seem to have gone quiet on whether agreement will be reached on a three-year extension. Indeed, the Prime Minister appears to have taken little interest in what could be a significant drag on UK exports of electric vehicles in the coming months. Will the Chair of the Select Committee update the House on what he knows about the current state of negotiations and Ministers’ current efforts to win a three-year extension to the rules of origin?
Liam Byrne
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. As ever, he is on the money. The rules of origin framework was put in place with the best intentions, to try to incentivise people in Europe and the United Kingdom to get gigafactory investments in place, but that has not yet happened. We have a looming gigafactory gap in this country, and if we do not negotiate an extension to the rules of origin, we will have tariffs of up to 10% on some of our exports, which will have a really serious impact on hundreds of thousands of jobs. Given how much is at stake and how many jobs are in peril, we were surprised to see almost no news about where the renegotiation of the rules of origin had got to. That was one reason why we stated it so clearly as a requirement in our conclusions—so that the Government now have to go on the record to explain to the House, and indeed the country, precisely what they are doing.