Battery Strategy (Science and Technology Committee Report)

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I am no technical or scientific expert in this field, but I did read the report of this committee as soon as it came out, and I found it a very good exposition of the failure of government to work effectively with the research sector and business to develop in Britain the native industries of the future. That is one of my main political concerns.

The second paragraph of the report points out the problem we have here; it says that

“we were astonished by the stark disconnect between the optimism of Ministers and officials that the UK could retain its position in the automotive sector, and the concerns of our other witnesses that the UK is far behind its competitors and faces significant challenges”.

I wonder whether the Minister agrees with that conclusion and, if not, whether he will explain to us why he does not agree with it. This was said 17 months ago, when the report was published, but the situation has become even more desperate in that time. I did a bit of newspaper research with the help of the Library on how things are going. I note, for instance, that this year the

“UK production of cars has tumbled from 1.7 million per year to just 866,000”.

This is in what used to be one of our most successful industries.

I think that the noble Lord, Lord Patel, referred to the same newspaper article that I read in the Times about a week ago. I want to emphasise it again because I would like an answer from the Minister as to whether he agrees that this represents the situation:

“Recent months have been a slow-motion car crash for the nation’s pretensions to become what successive prime ministers have promised would become a ‘global hub’ of the electrified automotive industry.”


We have the examples of BMW and Johnson Matthey, and the fact that Britishvolt is near bankruptcy. Where is there any positive news, other than, incidentally, news of the Chinese-owned battery company that is getting ready to manufacture alongside Nissan in Sunderland, which I welcome and do not see any particular problem with?

When you look at what is happening in Britain by comparison with overseas, it is a worrying situation. The Faraday Institution, which noble Lords have referred to, counts 41 projects in western Europe that are under way. Only three of them are in the UK and the only one that is going well is the one that I referred to: the Chinese company operating beside Nissan. We are in a weak position. Germany has 12 gigafactories opened or planned, while Hungary, France and Italy are making strong preparations. We are losing the Mini from Oxford.

Something has to be done and I would like to know what the Government are planning to do about this crisis. Do they recognise that there is a crisis, because there is? When Greg Clark was Secretary of State, we had a certain consistency and coherence in our approach to industry for the years of Mrs May’s premiership. In the last three years, we have had five different Secretaries of State for Business: Andrea Leadsom, Alok Sharma, Kwasi Kwarteng, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Grant Shapps.

What sort of chaos have these changes produced? What grip do Ministers have on what is going on in the department? What leadership are they offering in this field to try to rescue us from impending disaster? That is the question that I want the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, to answer at the end of the debate. I do not think that they have done very much, because they do not have an ideological approach that is about working closely with businesses to develop new growth opportunities and new businesses of the future.

This was not the approach that Mrs Thatcher adopted in the 1980s when she led the renaissance of the British car industry. She saw the opportunities of the single market and the opportunity to bring overseas companies into Britain to re-establish this great industry. We are in danger of losing all that now. It is not that the Government have not had some successes—I would give them high marks for the Vaccine Taskforce and how it worked—but what is the barrier to Ministers rolling up their sleeves, getting on the telephone and trying to sort out the mess that this report has detailed? If the Minister can answer that question, I will be very happy.