Oral Answers to Questions

Rachel Taylor Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Justin Madders]

I am at one with my hon. Friend in wanting all parts of the country, especially the north-west and the north-east, to have high-paid, well-skilled, good jobs, in tech sectors in particular, but also in other areas where we can see great advantage for the economy. The local skills improvement plan for the north-east will help, and the excellent facilities at Blyth’s Energy Central Learning Hub are supported by over £6 million of Government funding. That is already developing sector skills in a real-world port setting. With the reopening of the Northumberland line, we have reconnected towns in south-east Northumberland with Tyneside, improving links and opportunities across the area.

[Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)]

18. What steps his Department is taking to support the automotive industry.

[The Minister for Industry (Sarah Jones)]

As we have already discussed, the automotive sector is absolutely vital to the Government’s plans for green economic growth, and for growing the economy more widely. That is why, at the Budget, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor committed to ensuring over £2 billion of capital and research and development funding before 2030 for zero emission vehicle manufacturing and its supply chains. We are also consulting the industry to make sure that the zero emissions transition works for the UK’s car industry, and working with the automotive transformation fund and the Advanced Propulsion Centre to make sure that we carry on innovating and seeing the growth of the automotive sector in the UK.

[Rachel Taylor]

Around 3,000 of my constituents in North Warwickshire and Bedworth work in the automotive sector. I have met representatives of many small and medium-sized businesses that provide engineering and manufacturing services for the sector, as well as Jaguar Land Rover, which has a battery assembly centre in my constituency. A career in the automotive industry should be an attractive prospect to many young people in my constituency. What is the Minister doing to support the sector in upskilling its workforce and providing apprenticeship schemes, so that companies are not left relying on immigration to fill skills gaps?

[Sarah Jones]

My hon. Friend makes a really good point. There is a lot of work under way to look at skills across the board, because thus far no Government have had a proper strategy on the skills that we need, and on how we make sure that we train our own people, so that we do not have to rely on immigration. There are examples in the automotive sector of absolutely brilliant apprenticeship schemes that other industries can learn from, and we are working with Skills England. I have regular meetings with colleagues in the Department for Education, the Home Office and the Department for Work and Pensions to make sure that we crack this nut and encourage people to go into good, well-paid jobs.