Automotive Manufacturing Sector: Support

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Monday 15th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I believe that the outcome has been relatively satisfactory, with the purchase of Britishvolt by Recharge Industries, which I have met on several occasions to ensure that it is committed to investing in this country. It will make non-vehicular batteries to begin with but has reassured me that it will ultimately make batteries that can be used in EVs. It is not true that we do not have prospects. As we know in this House, there has been £1 billion of investment in the Sunderland plant for Envision to allow us to make electric vehicles made by Nissan.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, further to the answer the Minister gave a moment ago, when he gazes down on the country from his hot-air balloon, can he tell us where the gigafactory for the manufacture of electric batteries, on which the future automotive industry of this country is going to depend, will be?

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

I have tried to cover the key areas where we are investing significantly alongside industry to build our EV industry. We have several important pools of capital. I have not mentioned UKEF, which has through various loan schemes also supported our existing and future manufacturers. On top of that, through the Faraday challenge we are investing very heavily in R&D, because innovation will drive the technological change that will give us these opportunities in the future.