UK Automotive Industry

Jack Dromey Excerpts

Tuesday 1st April 2014 Westminster Hall

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan.

I received an e-mail on Sunday from a young man from Castle Vale who was desperate because he has been out of work for two years—one in four young people in my constituency are out of work—and he said, “Jack, can you help me to get into Jaguar Land Rover?” For him, times are bleak, but Jaguar Land Rover’s remarkable transformation and success story over the past five years offers hope.

The future looked bleak when Ford was in control. When I was elected in 2010, the assumption was that the Jaguar plant would close. Mercifully, Tata, an excellent company, took over and brought in two outstanding Germans, Carl-Peter Forster, managing director and group chief executive officer of Tata, and Ralf Speth, the new CEO, to have a fresh look at the business together with the remarkable Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya. I remember meeting them within days of the general election, as they were having a fresh look at the fortunes of Jaguar Land Rover, and two points stick out in my mind.

First, the people brought in by Tata said that notwithstanding the run-down of the automotive industry in the west midlands, there were great residual strengths. There are both primes and component companies, from GKN on the one hand to Jaco-Sumal, which employs eight engineers just off Erdington High street, on the other. There are logistics companies, research and development facilities and universities, such as the university of Warwick. That goes all the way down to the midlands’ world-class games industry, with which the automotive industry wants to collaborate on the next generation of in-car entertainment. Secondly, they said that they welcomed the Labour Government’s commitment to an automotive sector strategy and the incoming Government’s commitment to continuity of policy.

Over the past four years, what we have seen is nothing short of a remarkable transformation. Jaguar Land Rover is now one of the jewels in the crown of British manufacturing. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith), I want to pay tribute both to the company and the work force. It is sometimes popular in this place to knock Unite, which does get it wrong from time to time, but its role in the transformation of the automotive industry and in what happened at Jaguar Land Rover has been nothing short of outstanding.

I have two points about what the next stages should be. First, I hope that the Government back Jaguar Land Rover’s skills bid. The hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson), whom I congratulate on securing the debate, was right to focus on skills. JLR wants 5,000 more people in its factories and 20,000 in its supply chain. It is already running into skills bottlenecks and is therefore crucially working with its supply chain, but it needs Government support if it is continually to ramp up the necessary skills.

Secondly, just when we are seeing a major transformation of the industry into a world-class success story, it is crucial that we do nothing to put it at risk. The continuing uncertainty over our membership of the European Union is damaging to the automotive sector. Inward investment is key to the success of the sector, but key to inward investment is our continuing membership of the European Union. The problems within the Conservative party over membership of the EU do not help to secure the industry’s medium to long-term success.

In conclusion, we are rightly celebrating a success story, but we must sadly mourn the fact that Dunlop Motorsport is leaving these shores after 125 years of production in our country. It is a bitter irony that just when automotive industry is increasingly onshoring its supply chains, Goodyear, which is based 3,500 miles away in Ohio, is offshoring. Having said that, the main emphasis today has rightly been on celebrating and building on the success stories, but the Government’s role is crucial.