Automotive Industry

Debate between Jonathan Reynolds and Richard Thomson

Wednesday 12th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Richard Thomson]

I share my hon. Friend’s concern. [Interruption.] There is some sedentary chuntering—if the hon. Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans) gives me a chance to respond to the intervention, I will gladly give way to him if he has a substantive point to make. We can still see the industrial scars of the devastation reaped by the sudden closure of the Linwood factory in 1981. What we do not see quite so readily but is still every bit as debilitating is the impact on families who lose opportunities to participate fully in the economy. There is a very high price associated with getting this wrong, which goes far beyond simply not seeing factories on greenfield sites.

The motion speaks about a lack of a meaningful UK industrial strategy, which is a fair accusation. It calls for the need to

“urgently resolve the rules of origin changes”

that are looming in 2024. At this point, I am bound to observe that both Labour and the Conservatives make grandiloquent promises about how each would seek to harness the power of the British state to transform the economy and, with it, the lives and opportunities that follow. For the two years in every three over the last century that the Conservatives have had power, or the one year in every three that Labour has had power, neither has done that.

I mentioned the various iterations of Conservative industrial strategy; I have read Labour’s industrial strategy, which carries the signature and many photographs of the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds). In many ways it is a very fine document, but when it comes to the impact of rules of origin, as with much else, a position promising to make Brexit work means absolutely nothing. I say this as gently as possible: Brexit can never be made to work, either in its current form or in any conceivable variant. As long as making Brexit work is part of the strategy, no matter which party it belongs to—Labour or the Conservatives—it will be left with a slow puncture.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

Will the hon. Member give way on that point?

[Richard Thomson]

I was coming to the end of my remarks, but I will give way since I mentioned the hon. Member.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I understand the strength of feeling on that point and how, when we have this conversation, many will revert to that Brexit argument. However, I ask the hon. Gentleman to recognise not the political case but the economic one: we have the lowest business investment in the G7 under this Conservative Government. We want to provide a stable platform for that investment to increase in gigafactories, R&D, hydrogen and all the things we want to see, but reopening that debate—and the independence debate—is not the stable way to realise those opportunities in future. If we spend all our time doing that, we will find that other countries get to a point that we will never be able to catch up with, because we did not focus on the real opportunities at hand.

[Richard Thomson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, but I could not disagree more. This is not a stable platform. The Conservatives are offering us the stability of decline, and it seems that Labour is embracing that for fear of frightening its former voters in the red wall. It seeks to get them back not with honesty, but by telling people what it thinks they want to hear. It should have the intellectual honesty to recognise that the real debilitating impact on securing future growth opportunities is not from the issue he mentions, but from the barriers that have been imposed. To hear that Labour intends to further padlock them in place will depress a great many people the length and breadth not just of Scotland but, looking at opinion polling, far beyond.

I regret to say that although the motion contains many fine words—it is certainly a fine document in many respects from Labour—while it remains saddled to the Brexit the Conservatives have given us, it will not do anything to tackle the fundamental problems it diagnoses.