Opel/Vauxhall: Sale to PSA Group

Iain Wright Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have had many discussions about opportunities for expanding the manufacture and provision of ultra-low emission vehicles. This country has a very good reputation as a hotbed of research in that area, and PSA wants to expand its exposure to that and is doing so. I am determined that we should seize the opportunity that that gives us for our sector to go from strength to strength.

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

The plants at Luton and Ellesmere Port are productive and efficient. They have a highly skilled workforce that any company would be proud to employ—this is not a basket-case industry—but in the face of strong foreign Government support, we need an active and interventionist Government who are determined to safeguard these competitive skills and manufacturing assets for Britain. If the new enterprise plans to become profitable through the development of products and the supply chain, and by moving the production of Opel cars on to PSA assembly lines, what specific things will the Government pledge to do both to win the new model Astra for Britain and to develop this country’s automotive supply chain?

[Greg Clark]

The Chairman of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee is absolutely right. I do not think that anyone in PSA and GM, or in the French and German Governments, would think that we have been anything other than completely active in promoting the strengths of the UK. He is absolutely right: the presence of those factories in this country is not a matter of altruism; they are efficient and they make a great contribution to the performance of the company. We will build on that through the industrial strategy. I have mentioned research and development on electric vehicles, and the training and development of the workforce is a very important asset. We have a good workforce there, which we need to keep equipped for the future. He will see in the industrial strategy, as it develops, a renewed commitment to research and training in the auto sector.