10-point Plan: Six Months On

Justin Madders Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

That begs the question, when will Southend become a city? Leaving that to one side, of course I will help my hon. Friend achieve those goals. The electric charging point roll-out is perhaps the most important metric—the most important thing to do— in order to achieve our goals with respect to electric vehicles.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

Following on from the question of the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), there were some positive comments from the chief executive of Stellantis yesterday to the effect that things were moving in the right direction but we were not quite there yet. May I take this opportunity to remind the Secretary of State that Cheshire West and Chester Council and the local enterprise partnership have been working very closely with the civil servants over the past few months to make sure that the right deal is in place. They stand ready to do anything else they can to get this thing over the line, which is what we all want to see.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I am conscious of the work that the hon. Gentleman has done, as he put it, to get this over the line. I was gratified to see Mr Tavares’ comments yesterday and I think that we are in a reasonable place. We obviously need to work very hard together to get it over the line, but the situation in Ellesmere Port is moving in a positive direction.