UK Automotive Industry

Paul Howell Excerpts

Monday 18th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ms Ghani]

The right hon. Member and, of course, the Mayor for the West Midlands lobby incredibly hard—as they should, because they have fantastic sites for potential gigafactories—and those negotiations will continue. I always used to say at the Dispatch Box that we needed 100 GW of capacity, but the figure is now 89 GW. Envision and Tata provide us with a solid footing to get up to the capacity that we need, but we will not be complacent; we will continue our work.

As hon. Members will hear throughout my speech, over the summer we put in place a consultation on a battery strategy. I believe that, outside Norway, no other European country has such a strategy. We are working to produce a strategy to ensure that we have substantial capacity in the UK. The Tata commitment is huge, and I will allude to that as well. I mentioned Stellantis, which has started electric van production in its Vauxhall plant in Ellesmere Port. That transformation is also historic, as it makes the plant the first all-EV facility in the UK and one of the first in Europe.

I turn to gigafactories, the favourite topic of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne). In the summer, we also helped to secure more than £4 billion of investment from Tata for a new gigafactory. At 40 GW, it will be one of the largest battery plants in Europe, equivalent to the size of almost 65 football pitches. It will create up to 4,000 highly skilled jobs as well as thousands of further jobs in the wider supply chain for battery materials and critical raw minerals. Most importantly, the investment helps to turbocharge our switch to zero-emission vehicles by providing almost half the battery production needed by 2030. It is not that we need 12, 15 or five; it is about the capacity we need. Tata takes us two thirds of the way there and Envision is on top of that.

The announcements are the most recent in a line of investment decisions over the last couple of years. In 2021, Nissan and Envision announced a £1 billion investment to create an EV manufacturing hub in Sunderland. Ford joined the line-up in 2021 with a £227 million investment in Halewood to make the company’s first EV components site in Europe, and increased its investment in the plant to £380 million in 2022. Last year, we saw Bentley commit more than £2.5 billion to transition its Crewe plant to zero emission vehicles, with the first EV model to roll off the production lines around 2025.

Jaguar Land Rover has also announced that it will invest £15 billion over five years into its industrial footprint as part of its move towards electrification. That is great news for the west midlands and Halewood, where Jaguar Land Rover has production sites, research and development facilities and its headquarters. These investment decisions are votes of confidence from a highly productive and innovative sector, showcasing that the UK has the best to offer when it comes to green manufacturing and new and future technologies.

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

The Minister is listing some fantastic organisations and great businesses around the country, but their size is such that the businesses that supply them are massive organisations in their own right. I have Gestamp in Newton Aycliffe, a supplier of subframes to all over the world, from Nissan in Sunderland to Volvo China. They are huge businesses. Does the Minister recognise the importance of the supply chain, not just the headline businesses?

[Ms Ghani]

My hon. Friend is right that the supply chain is critical to ensure that we continue to manufacture at pace. Just last week, we “leapfrogged”—I believe that is the quote—the French to become the eighth largest manufacturer globally, which shows how important our supply chain is. There are kinks in the supply chain and a lot of pressure—the Inflation Reduction Act on one side, covid on the other—while trying to get hold of critical minerals for the base products. I have been working with industry, and we will publish an import strategy-supply chain piece of work soon to make sure that we are shedding light and doing everything we can for our advanced manufacturing sector.

We have a strong and valued relationship with the sector, stemming from the UK’s rich history in auto manufacturing.