UK Car Industry

Nia Griffith Excerpts

Wednesday 17th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ms Ghani]

The hon. Member is absolutely right: there is a fantastic project with Nissan and Envision that will support 6,200 jobs in that supply chain, with more than 900 new Nissan jobs and 750 new jobs at the Envision gigafactory. By 2025, that site will see a projected 100,000 battery electric vehicles produced each year by Nissan; it is the first in the UK at that scale. All the other programmes of investment that I explained, whether that is the automotive transformation fund or the Faraday battery challenge, are what we are using to attract further investment in the UK, especially in gigafactories. That is exactly what we are working on—it is what I am working on as the co-chair of the Automotive Council.

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

The transition to electric vehicles means not only new battery and engine factories, but significant investment in car component factories such as Gestamp in my constituency, which has developed lighter, tougher car body parts. Multinational companies such as Gestamp are currently making crucial decisions about where to site the production lines of the future, so with the US Inflation Reduction Act and the EU refining its response, what are the Government going to do to reduce energy costs both now and in the long term, to provide a coherent industrial vision and strategy, and real incentives for companies such as Gestamp to invest their new lines here in the UK?