Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Andrew Selous

Thursday 14th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Industry and Economic Security (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Businesses are at the heart of the Government’s export strategy, “Made in the UK, Sold to the World”, and of our shared ambition to reach £1 trillion in annual exports by 2030. In the past year, the UK has become the fifth largest exporter of goods and services in the world. Just last week, I personally led a delegation of 20 businesses to the Three Seas summit in Romania, connecting with over 1,500 representatives to help secure contracts, work and export opportunities in the region’s 13 member states.

[Andrew Selous]

In my constituency, companies such as EyeOL, Lindal Valve, Peli BioThermal, Friction and Signature Flatbreads all export globally, along with 198 smaller businesses that export through Amazon, yet apparently only 10% of companies export. What more can we do to get businesses to export, not just to Europe but globally? Apparently, businesses that export pay higher wages, so this is part of levelling up, too.

[Ms Ghani]

My hon. Friend is a great champion for his businesses and helping them to export. He is absolutely right that free trade agreements and memorandums of understanding are opening up new markets for us, but of course we want to make sure that everyone makes the most of those opportunities. That is why we are ensuring that UK exporters have the skills they need through our innovative export academy; the information they need to capitalise on new deals through the FTA utilisation strategy; the advice they need through the export support service; and the financial backing they need through UK Export Finance. My hon. Friend also made the very powerful point that companies that export pay higher wages.

Tata Group Gigafactory Investment

Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Andrew Selous

Thursday 20th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ms Ghani]

I do not think it gets any more positive from the SNP on this point. I am pleased that the right hon. Gentleman welcomed the £4 billion investment and the more than 4,000 jobs, and the confidence we have in the advanced manufacturing sector in the UK; that was such a positive response to what this Government have been able to achieve. I was not aware of the Dundee point, but I will go away and look it up. So many people have been responsible for getting this project over the line and so many have been campaigning for gigafactories. In particular, my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger) has been campaigning for gigafactories for longer than I have been in Parliament, so huge thanks go to him and to everyone else who helped to get this project over the line.

On charging points, as the Minister of State, Department for Transport, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) said in last week’s debate on the automotive sector, ChargeUK has committed to investing more than £6 billion in the development and operation of charging infrastructure before 2030. We heard in that debate that some colleagues felt the investment in their constituencies was not substantial enough. We need to make sure that as demand for EV vehicles grows—there has been much more demand and many more sales recently—the charging infrastructure stands up to that. As the Minister responsible for the automotive sector, I know we are doing everything we can to fulfil our part of the bargain, as it were, but we need to make sure that charging infrastructure is rolled out as fast as it can be. Substantial targets are being met and the Transport Minister is keen to take up constituency cases to make sure that the roll-out is fast as it can be.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I am absolutely delighted by this announcement. A number of my constituents work in the Vauxhall van factory in Luton, which makes a fantastic Vivaro van that we want to get electrified. Will the Minister say a little more about how we complete the final piece of the picture so that every car plant in the UK is reassured that there will be UK-made batteries? Yesterday’s announcement was fantastic, but one or two of us are concerned about that last piece.

[Ms Ghani]

I hope to get an invitation to visit that plant and my hon. Friend’s constituency, and I will of course do my best to promote Vauxhall vans. What is really exciting about this initiative is that it is about producing batteries not just for JLR but for the whole market, which is crucial. With the Tata and Envision gigafactories, we are two thirds of the way to getting to the 100 GW that the Faraday challenge believes we need. We are not complacent and are still going to do everything we can to secure further investment and seek further growth in this area, but for the moment we need to accept that this gigafactory could have gone anywhere in Europe, and there were huge talks about where it was going to be, but Tata had confidence in the UK and decided to come home to us.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Andrew Selous

Thursday 18th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

6. What steps her Department is taking to support the critical minerals industry.

[The Minister of State, Department for Business and Trade (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

As part of the UK’s strategy to secure a resilient supply of critical minerals, we are accelerating domestic capabilities along the whole critical minerals value chain, from mining to manufacturing. Our support for businesses such as Cornish Lithium and Green Lithium shows our support for these industries. Just in March, we published a refreshed delivery approach to the critical minerals strategy, including the establishment of a new industry taskforce on critical minerals that will investigate the critical mineral dependencies and vulnerabilities faced by UK industry and help it to mitigate risks.

[Andrew Selous]

I thank the Minister for that answer. She will know well that demand for graphite, lithium and cobalt is expected to quadruple by the 2040s. With supply currently dominated by China, what can the Government do to extract rapidly the deposits identified in all four nations of the United Kingdom so that we can gain a climate action dividend and level up the United Kingdom?

[Ms Ghani]

My hon. Friend is right. One reason why I came back into government was to ensure that we were not reliant on one country, China. We need more lithium, cobalt and graphite, as does everybody else, to make batteries for electric cars, and we need silicon and tin for electronics. We welcome the Critical Minerals Intelligence Centre’s report, “Potential for Critical Raw Material Prospectivity in the UK”, which we commissioned. We are working with the British Geological Survey on next steps. Through the strategy, we are funding projects such as Cornish Lithium and Green Lithium, which build innovative, resilient value chains here in the UK.

UK Car Industry

Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Andrew Selous

Wednesday 17th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ms Ghani]

I would not expect anything less than a rerun of the conversation on Brexit. Fundamentally, the hon. Member does not like Brexit, does not like any trade deal, and does not even like the most integrated single market between England and Scotland, so I know that he has nothing appropriate to say.

Let us talk about the situation as it is: confidence in the UK automotive sector, and in the whole supply chain, has meant that Stellantis has invested more than £100 million in the Vauxhall plant in Ellesmere Port. That will see the plant transition to become the first mass-market all-electric plant in the UK, producing electric vans from 2023. That shows the confidence that that particular firm has in the UK.

We know that the production of electric units will go up, whether for private or commercial use, and we are doing everything we can to provide support on some of the more challenging issues in car manufacturing, such as access to energy and the cost of energy, which we have been working on as well. It is internationally challenging—I accept that—but the UK continues to be incredibly attractive for car manufacturing.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Many of my constituents work at the Vauxhall Luton van factory, which makes the incredibly successful Vivaro, so this issue really matters to them and to me, and it matters for our industrial future. Will the Minister flesh out in a little more detail the plan to get more battery manufacturing capacity here in the United Kingdom? When will there be announcements? What number of battery plants does she believe the United Kingdom needs to have a successful car manufacturing industry?

[Ms Ghani]

I thank my hon. Friend for that incredibly sensible question. I have talked about all the programmes of work we have in place to attract gigafactories to the UK and to ensure that we are using the best technology that we can. We have the automotive transformation fund, which is building globally competitive electric vehicle supply chains, and I have spoken about the Faraday project, which will unlock a huge amount of research and development. We have Envision, too. We are working with and we constantly talk to other investors to help them come and establish gigafactories in the UK. We know how important it is to have supply chains to deal with the remarkable amount of cars being manufactured here.

My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that we also published in the integrated review an updated report on critical minerals to ensure that we are able to access to those minerals and are not relying on a particular nation, but can diversify. As I have said, I co-chair the Automotive Council, and that will provide a huge amount of assurance to his constituents that we are working hand in hand with the sector.