Justin Madders
MP for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough · Labour · United Kingdom
“Friend the Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard asked about, will consider the points raised in this debate and whether any of them can be put into future updates to guidance. As was mentioned, good passenger information is central to standards.”
“As the roads Minister, I of course recognise the importance of bus stops and the important effect they have on the streetscape. My hon. Friend the Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard made clear that she is passionate and informed about the importance of bus journeys to everyone.”
“Where responsibility for highways or individual assets sits elsewhere, close and effective working between the relevant authorities is essential. We expect local plans to join up services, infrastructure and passenger information, rather than treating them as separate issues. That will no doubt be music to the ears of my hon.”
“Our guidance encourages authorities to take a strategic approach to stops and interchanges, including keeping an inventory of infrastructure, identifying priorities for investment and setting locally appropriate standards for facilities and maintenance.”
“She is absolutely right that the quality of a bus stop is about more than accessibility, although of course accessibility is vital. Passengers notice whether a stop is easy to find and use, whether it offers shelter or seating where appropriate, whether it is clean, whether the surroundings feel safe and well maintained and, as we have di…”
“That approach reflects a simple principle: local transport authorities know their areas and are best placed to plan improvements across the whole local bus network. That is why the Department’s vision for buses, within an integrated transport system, puts local transport authorities at the centre of delivery.”
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“For example, a firm commented they were used even ‘when not strictly necessary, where everyone knew the ongoing issue.’” As a former practising lawyer who has handled thousands of those settlement agreements, I can confirm that NDAs are standard and the attitude of most employers, when challenged on the inclusion of them, is that they are a standard clause and the agreement is presented on a take-it-or-leave-it basis—whether the NDA is necessary or not. The reason they continue is the imbalance in power in the employment relationship. The SRA found that only six of 25 solicitors it interviewed reported even questioning the need for a confidentiality clause. The fact that those drafting them give no particular weight to them is a trend.”
“In 2019, the Committee said: “Confidentiality and non-derogatory clauses have become commonly used in agreements reached between employers and employees when settling or closing employment complaints or employment tribunal cases about discrimination or harassment. Indeed, they are commonplace when settling any type of employment dispute.” The Solicitors Regulation Authority said that “firms often told us that NDAs are included as standard without consideration of the purpose for including such a clause.”
“I do not dispute that there is a need for some non-disclosure agreements. There are sometimes appropriate situations, where they are needed, but I think we all agree that they are far more prevalent than they need to be and are being abused to cover up other issues. In the absence of any data on the numbers of agreements in operation, we are reliant on the legal profession and campaigning groups to give us an idea of what is happening. Evidence collected by the Women and Equalities Committee and a recent study conducted by the Solicitors Regulation Authority found that there is widespread use of NDAs in the workplace, with little regard given to their appropriateness.”
“As I will go on to explain, that does cause people difficulties later. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) described NDAs as being weaponised, which I thought was a good description. She also said that employment tribunals never tackle the underlying cause of discrimination in the workplace. Of course, tribunals can make recommendations to employers, but we are getting a body of evidence that this is not an effective tool, and that perhaps an enforcement body is needed to look at those issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) brought all of her experience to the fore and gave a truly fantastic speech. She was right to say that this issue is fundamentally about power and its imbalance, which I will come to in my speech.”
“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Ali. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller) on calling this debate; it is an area that she has worked in for a considerable period of time and she articulated very clearly what the problems are and why they need tackling. There have been a lot of excellent contributions today. My hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) brought her vast experience of employee representation to the fore. She talked about having open cultures in the workplace, which is a good way of looking at how this all needs to change. The hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) made an excellent speech; she made the important point that when someone signs these NDAs, they are not for a month or a year, but for life.”
“I hope the Secretary of State will look into that and that the Kark review recommendations will finally be implemented, because there are serious lessons to be learned from what went on with the senior management.”
“As the Secretary of State will be aware, my constituency is served by the Countess of Chester Hospital and many of my constituents work there and are being treated there. There is no doubting the impact this case has had on the whole community, as my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Samantha Dixon) has mentioned. However, as a constituency MP, when I was briefed by the management at the time the issues first emerged, I can say a very different picture was painted from the one we see today. It has been a huge concern that management involved at the time have gone on to work in other parts of the NHS, seemingly with approval from NHS England.”
“One positive from this farce is that we should hear no more lectures from Conservative Members about us not fixing the roof when the sun was shining. How detailed and accurate will the list be when the Secretary of State produces it? I ask because she emailed me on Friday night saying that no schools in my constituency were affected—one may be a possibility—but on Sunday I heard from a headteacher who has had to make arrangements because RAAC had been discovered in their school. The Secretary of State tells me that no schools in my constituency have a problem, but I know for a fact that that information is incorrect, so can she give an assurance that, when it comes out, the list will be 100% accurate?”
“All this amendment does is what the ILO is asking the Government to do anyway, which is to undertake genuine consultation before implementing minimum service regulations. This means that, when regulations are published, they would include an impact assessment and there should be genuine consultation on the regulations, including on the protection for workers named in work notices and the reasonable steps a trade union needs to take to ensure compliance.”
“When Parliament is starved of its ability to properly scrutinise legislation, that impacts on fundamental human rights, as it does in this case. It should come as no surprise that there is pushback from the other place requiring that a robust process be followed. The amendment is important because the International Labour Organisation’s conference committee on the application of standards called on the Government to ensure that existing and prospective legislation is in conformity with the convention that governs freedom of association and the protection of the right to organise. I would not have thought that is too much to ask of a modern liberal democracy. In fact, I am rather ashamed that the ILO has had to point it out at all.”
“Only last week the High Court said, in relation to the consultation process for the regulations that allow agency workers to break strikes, that “this is not a case in which the evidence is that the proposal had obvious and undisputed merit based on cogent evidence, and enjoyed strong support from representative bodies in the sector”. It could have been talking about this Bill—no doubt, in time, it will be. The pattern is familiar. The Government decide the policy, although “policy” is probably too strong a word. The Government decide the headline that they want to create, rush through ill-thought-out legislation and then ignore all the voices that point out principled and practical objections. That is to treat democracy with contempt. Parliament is not a rubber-stamping process to agree whatever the Government of the day decide.”
“This is small comfort to Parliament, which is considering the matter right now.” The Committee’s recommendation was that the Government should publish indicative draft regulations alongside the Bill. As it rightly points out, “the Government must have some idea how they propose to exercise these powers.” It is no surprise that the impact assessment got a red rating. Of the 861 Bills assessed by the Regulatory Policy Committee since its creation, just 2.9% have been given a red rating. When legislation represents such a fundamental departure from past practice, the importance of impact assessments increases rather than decreases. If this all sounds familiar to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that is because it is.”
“The impact assessment also says, on at least half a dozen occasions, that assumptions are being made about the level of service that would be required. That is the point of the Lords amendment: unless we have some idea about what these minimum service levels will be—in the six months since the Bill was published, Ministers have not come to the Dispatch Box and told us—we are legislating in a vacuum. The point has not been lost on the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which wrote in its assessment that “there is nothing in the Bill saying what those minimum service levels are. We shall only know when Ministers make regulations after the Bill is enacted.”
“The Regulatory Policy Committee said that it was not fit for purpose—it could just as easily have been talking about the Government—and no wonder, given that the assessment contains statements that undermine both the purpose and execution of the Bill. The impact assessment states that the Bill “could mean a general increase in tension between unions and employers. This may result in more adverse impacts in the long term, such as an increased frequency of strikes for each dispute.” When Ministers told us on Second Reading that the Bill would reduce the disruption caused by strikes, what they apparently did not know was that the Government’s own impact assessment would say that it could, in fact, have the opposite effect.”
“The amendment also provides yet another opportunity for us to raise our concerns about the Government’s lax approach to proper scrutiny during the Bill’s progress so far. Let us go back to when the Bill was first published. It is surely a basic expectation of Government that they should provide an impact assessment before asking hon. Members to vote on a Bill. But no—we were asked to trust the Government that the matter was in hand and that all would be fine. We said it at the time and we say it again: that approach is completely unacceptable. The Bill had been trailed in the press for months before it was published, so not to have the impact assessment ready at the same time was a failure of basic competence. When it finally appeared, we could see why the Government were so keen to keep it under wraps.”
“Freedom matters, and valuing freedom sometimes means that we protect another person’s freedom to do something even if we do not personally agree with the particular course of action. But our objections are based not just on principles, but on practicalities. Ultimately, we do not think that the Bill will work. The Bill is counterproductive because it will not quell the concerns of many people in the sectors that have taken industrial action. Taking away the right to strike will not take away people’s concerns. We cannot legislate away people’s legitimate grievances about their working conditions. Because the Bill is so ill defined and poorly thought through, Parliament must have a proper opportunity to consider its ramifications. The measures set out in Lords amendment 2D attempt to address some of those issues.”
“I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Let me repeat, at the outset, our opposition to the Bill and our intention to repeal the Act that it will become should we be in a position to do so in the future. It is one of the most illiberal, unconscionable and ultimately destructive pieces of legislation produced by any Government. We believe that the right to withdraw labour is a fundamental right, a human right, and one that should not be extinguished. Even if some Conservative Members cannot see past their hostility to trade unions and past the easy headlines, they should see that what they are asking their constituents to do is distinctly un-British, because it infringes on individual freedoms that ought to be—even for Conservative Members—a basic part of any open and democratic society.”
“That is a very good question. My understanding—no doubt the Minister can correct me if I am wrong—is that it is still up to the employer to determine what work notices it issues, which makes the Bill a little ludicrous. All these consultation papers, all these impact assessments, and we are still legislating in the dark.”
“By rejecting this Lords amendment, the Government are, in effect, saying one of two things: either they do not know whether they break international law; or they do know but they just do not care. We ought to care, we ought not to be trailing behind in workplace protections, and we ought not to be mentioned in the same breath as Turkmenistan. We ought to be leading from the front, as an exemplar for other countries to follow and a leader on the international stage that says, “Yes, good workplace rights and strong trade unions are a key component in any prospering modem economy, and the right to withdraw your labour is a fundamental one.” However, this Bill is the hallmark of a weak Government who have run out of steam, have nothing left to offer but division and want to silence the very people who keep this country going—shame on them.”
“The evidence to date and the opinion of the ILO say otherwise. I referred to the fact that the ILO is not alone in expressing concerns about the Bill. Many organisations have expressed alarm, including the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Joint Committee on Human Rights, NHS Providers, the rail industry, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, the TUC, and the Welsh and Scottish Governments. The Transport Secretary and the Education Secretary have also done so, and I could give more names, but I have only an hour for this debate and so I will leave it there. When we have the shameful spectacle of the ILO calling this Bill out, Members need to think again.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. That is why it would have been so interesting to see what the consultation responses were to the draft regulations, because those might have told us whether employers were saying, “Don’t do this; we don’t think it is going to work.” We know that a long list of employers’ organisations are opposed to this Bill, and I will come on to that in a moment. They understand that, ultimately, it is not going to help industrial relations but will sour them. In summary, the Bill’s impact assessment turns up late and is inadequate; no pre-legislative scrutiny or evidence sessions for the Bill took place; the Committee stage is rushed through in one day; and subsequent consultations are incomplete and leave many questions unanswered. Yet the Government still say that this Lords amendment is not necessary.”
“What are the Government doing to ensure that victims receive the compensation that they rightly deserve? Does he consider that they have a sufficient grip of public access to post offices and a proper strategy to maintain services?”
“Neston lost its branch almost two years ago, and it is now open in a car park for two hours on two days a week. Great Sutton post office closed last year, and there is no sign of it reopening. It all feels like management either do not care or do not have the capability to address this structural challenge. We know they have not been able to do the job in the past. Can they do it in the future? I raised that issue primarily because there is a pattern here. The failure to handle post office closures has parallels with the failure to deal with the Horizon scandal, which have both shown an unwillingness to change or to accept that things need to be improved. Does the Minister have confidence in the management of the Post Office? Does he think the management culture has changed sufficiently since Horizon first emerged?”
“Another difficulty is when one of the many sub-postmasters decides to close up shop, and we see time and again a failure to address that issue. It has happened many times in my constituency; I am sure it has happened in other Members’ constituencies. Every time the Post Office tells us that it will look for another partner to open up. We wait and we wait and sometimes—months or even years later—we get a new post office, but sometimes it does not appear at all. I have said repeatedly, every time there is a closure, that the Post Office’s laissez-faire attitude to another one reopening is not good enough. It does not work, and it is allowing services to wither on the vine. I can give examples of each outcome in my constituency. In Elton in 2016, we waited a year for the post office to reopen after it had closed.”
“Have the Government conducted any analysis into that? How many people are reliant solely on outreach services? Constituents have told me that they have to go on a magical mystery tour of the constituency to find a post office that is actually open, and that is not because they go out at unsociable hours; it is often in the middle of the day. Many people now struggle to find somewhere open because the advertised hours are not adhered to. I do not know why that is happening, but it points to something badly wrong in the whole system. What can be done about it? Has the Minister made an assessment of the anticipated profits of an average post office operating on a full-time basis? Is the system sustainable or is there a problem with the way it is being run?”
“There is a serious question about whether the management have the ability to meet those challenges. I was struck by the comments from a constituent of the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw who said that they make more money from the coffee machine than from post office services. That might explain why there is a silent withdrawal of the post office from our communities. Of the 11,500 post offices in operation, only 4,000 are open seven days a week. There has been a proliferation in the number of outreach branches. In 2000 there were just 52, representing 1% of the total network. As of March last year, that had gone up to 1,901, comprising 16% of the network. I would be interested in whether the Post Office meets any of its six accessibility criteria if part-time or partial service branches are included.”
“I know the Minister is looking into the governance arrangements, but has he commissioned any investigation into whether section 1112 of the Companies Act 2006 was breached in this episode? I would be grateful if he would address that specific point in his response. If he is unable to do so today, can he respond in writing? Understandably, the focus has been on the Horizon scandal—there are so many things that need to be addressed—but, as other Members have referred to, the creeping withdrawal of post office services affects all our communities. We have been reminded today of the important functions they perform, particularly for older and disabled people, carers and those who simply cannot access the internet. The post office is a vital lifeline, especially when other vital in-person services such as banks are closing at an alarming rate.”
“We wish to clarify that we did not ask for Sir Wyn’s agreement to the wording of this sub-metric and Sir Wyn and his team did not give any input into assessing whether it had been met.” This is an annual report; basic things like that ought to be checked before they appear in black and white. If we put aside the argument of whether executives should be paying themselves handsome sums for complying with things that they ought to be doing by law anyway, and if we also try to overlook the vast irony of the Post Office being caught doing what it pursued sub-postmasters for supposedly doing, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham said, that is a moral issue. There are questions about that. There is also the question of whether people making such statements are fit to be running any business.”
“One metric, which was marked as achieved, read: “All required evidence and information supplied on time, with confirmation from Sir Wyn Williams and team that Post Office’s performance supported and enabled the Inquiry to finish in line with expectations.” We now know that to be completely false; Sir Wyn Williams actually said: “I am dissatisfied by the approach that has been taken by the Post Office; in my view, their approach demonstrates a lack of clear thinking about the disclosure obligations owed to the Inquiry with which the Post Office must comply and the means by which their obligations can be fulfilled.” The Post Office has issued a clarification to the report and an apology, stating: “We recognise that by setting this particular sub-metric, and marking it as achieved, we implied that Sir Wyn and his team had agreed to this sub-metric and had commented on the outcome.”
“Last week, it was found that the documents for that day of evidence in the inquiry had not actually been disclosed at all. As the hon. Member for Telford said, there must be questions when the chief executive does not know the facts on something so important to the Post Office and to the victims. This is not just a casual misunderstanding; the Post Office annual report and accounts for 2021-22 published the metrics on which bonuses for senior leaders were based.”
“What are the Government going to do to protect those victims and to ensure that justice will be fairly and swiftly delivered? As we heard from the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw, executives have been receiving substantial bonuses while this has all been going on. We heard about chief executive Nick Read receiving £455,000 in bonuses on top of his £415,000 salary in ’21-22. As we know, part of those substantial bonuses was falsely reported to have been agreed by Sir Wyn Williams, who led the Horizon inquiry. That bonus was paid due to Read’s co-operation in the handing over of documents. We now know that to be false on two counts. First, it was reported in May that Sir Wyn did not sign it off; that was a complete fabrication.”
“Every trick in the book has been used to draw things out for as long as possible. That includes making low compensation offers, only for them to be raised once legal action is taken, and using technical and misleading language in letters to dissuade victims from seeking expert advice. Those are not the behaviours of an organisation that has a true insight into its failings. Those are not the behaviours of an organisation that is contrite. Those are not the behaviours of an organisation that recognises that it needs to change. Sixty former sub-postmasters have died without payouts and most victims are still waiting to receive their full and fair compensation. That is outrageous. Victims have been failed time and again by the Post Office’s toxic management culture.”
“Those sentiments are reflected by the Communication Workers Union, which identified a “serious and longstanding cultural and governance problem” rooted—a word we keep coming back to—in a fundamental lack of accountability. In its view, this led to the abuse of power, corporate complacency, denials, cover-ups and false evidence that have been the hallmark of the Horizon scandal. These comments are rightfully damming. The complete overhaul of Post Office management and culture that one would have expected on the back of such claims has been lacking. From the stories we have heard, the Post Office seems largely unreformed. Despite assertions to the contrary, we know that, as the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw detailed, years have been spent fighting compensation claims against honest sub-postmasters.”
“We have heard many poignant examples about how the lives of hundreds of innocent post office workers have been ruined by the Post Office aggressively pursuing them on the basis of a fundamentally dodgy IT system about which worries had been flagged up. Concerns about culture have been repeatedly raised in the debate. As Members have mentioned, the High Court in the case of Bates v. Post Office Ltd stated: “There seems to be a culture of secrecy and excessive confidentiality generally within the Post Office, but particularly focused on Horizon.” This is not someone down the Dog and Duck talking about the Post Office. It is a member of the judiciary, so we have to take those words very seriously.”
“The fact that the inquiry does not have the documents because they cannot be found raises questions about what on earth has been going on. Documents would normally be prepared for litigation, so my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham was right when he said that questions must be asked about what the board is doing. He talked about lies, cover-ups and deceit being the culture—a culture that is rotten to the core. He also talked about a tsunami of public cash being used to defend the indefensible. Those comments really sum up why this is something that has to change. As the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw said, it is very clear that this is one of the greatest—if not the greatest—miscarriages of justice in this country.”
“She raised several important questions that the Minister will hopefully be able to address, and I will refer to a number of the issues she mentioned. The hon. Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) spoke very powerfully. Her point about her constituent meeting the chief executive earlier this week really got to the nub of the problem: words need to be matched by action. That is the challenge that Post Office’s management need to step up to. She raised questions, as all Members did, about culture and governance. My right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) raised similar issues in a passionate speech. It is clear that there are serious questions about what the board is doing. Litigation has been ongoing for several years.”
“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir George. I start by thanking the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) for securing the debate. Her tireless work on this scandal is well recognised across the House and is greatly appreciated. Indeed, all Members who have spoken have been powerful advocates during their time in the House. They gave many powerful examples of how the management culture in the Post Office has had an impact on individual people’s lives. The hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw talked about obfuscation, secrecy and cover-ups, saying that nobody has truly been held to account for this. She made it clear that the victims she has spoken to have little faith that justice will be done. That really has to change.”
“I have been pursuing this matter for some time. Indeed, I have described it as the new payment protection insurance, or PPI, because there are so many people who have been signed up to things that they did not know about. The similarities between that and the leasehold scandal are all too familiar. Does the hon. Member feel that there needs to be far greater candour and transparency from developers when they sell their properties?”
“The hon. Lady raises an interesting point. Constituents have told me that people who walk their dogs on the land for which they are paying an estate management charge should not be allowed to do so, because those people have come from another estate, where they are not paying the charge. This whole model is set up to be divisive and turn communities against each other, is it not?”
“Someone has to step up to the plate and say, “Yes, this jewel in the crown of our manufacturing sector is going to be supported and supported properly, because we recognise that for our constituents, for our economy and for our environment, the car industry in the UK will only survive if there is the political will, backed up by a properly funded strategy, to make sure that it actually happens.” If the Conservative party will not do that, it should make way for one that will.”
“There is a huge opportunity for so-called “left behind” towns to receive some central investment for major charging points, so that those who cannot access private sources of electricity can come in to their town centre, charge their car and rejuvenate their town centre at the same time. There is a real opportunity there, but it will not happen by chance; it needs Government action. When the Government’s report on charging infrastructure acknowledges that the process is arduous, we have to ask what they are going to do to change it. The report states: “Installing and operating chargepoints requires several parties across the energy sector, local government and the transport sector to work together effectively.” But where does the responsibility for that ultimately lie? That is the endgame for the whole automotive sector.”
“According to analysis by Transport & Environment, most of the UK’s regions possess less than 50% of the estimated charging capacity required by 2025. In regions such as my own in the north-west, the north-east, the south-west and Northern Ireland, it is only around 30% of the capacity required. My local authority, Cheshire West and Chester, has only 28% of the chargers required by 2025—a stark comparison with wealthy London boroughs such as Westminster, which already has 358% of the chargers it needs. That is not a good record for a Government who stood on a platform of levelling up the country—there appears to be no strategy to deal with those regional disparities. I am not sure that the Government even recognise that they exist.”
“Given that around one third of UK homes do not have access to off-street parking, whether a driveway or a garage, we need a more effective way to public charging before we reach 2030. There is also a profound unfairness in the fact that those whose properties lack driveways pay four times as much in VAT as those who can use domestic supplies of electricity. The Government’s commitment to building 300,000 new charging points is to be welcomed, but between 2017 and 2022 only 1,603 were installed, and almost 75% of those were located in the west midlands, the south-east and London. The north-west received only 0.7% of the total installed. London now possesses 100% of the charging points required by 2025, yet every other region in the country is lacking.”
“In consumers’ minds there is now hesitancy about moving over to EVs and making a huge financial commitment at a time of cost of living crisis. The initial cost and inconvenience of running an electric vehicle is at the forefront of their considerations. Brand-new electric vehicles are far more expensive than second-hand traditional vehicles and, while electric vehicles are becoming a greater proportion of new sales, I am concerned that we will face a natural ceiling on them before too long. As technologies progress and electric vehicles become more numerous on the roads, focus has turned to the availability and practicality of owning one. Concerns have arisen around access to and the cost of on-street charging.”
“We are no longer part of the EU, so we have no excuse now, and I ask myself what is stopping us being able to make use of public sector procurement powers to support our automotive sector. I ask myself why police officers in Cheshire are using vehicles made thousands of miles away when they could be in vehicles made just down the road at Vauxhall Motors. It does not have to be that way. The automotive sector has had more than its fair share of challenges due to Brexit, as we have heard, but let us use some of those so-called new-found freedoms to bring us some benefits as well. A proper strategy on charging points is needed, but, just as with the overall industrial strategy, there is a mistaken belief that things should just be left to the market.”
“We need to make better use of the taxpayer pound that we already spend, and the most cursory look around the fleets in most other countries shows that we stand almost alone in failing to recognise the importance of social value as part of our procurement process. In France, the police drive Citroëns, Renaults and Peugeots produced in French factories. In Germany, they drive Mercedes, BMWs and Volkswagens. In Spain they drive Seat vehicles; in Sweden, it is Saabs and Volvos and in Italy they drive Alfa Romeos, Fiats and even sometimes Lamborghinis. All those countries are governed by the same directive as we used to be, yet they all seem to be able to procure vehicles in the way that supports their own industry.”
“As we know from many other industries, once it is gone, it is gone. As the Faraday Institution has said, we need a “timely and co-ordinated effort” to attract more gigafactories to the UK. We need to develop a resilient, sustainable and efficient supply chain and build up skills capabilities. That takes leadership, and it is about time we saw some from the Government. We definitely need a strategy, and one that is interventionist in its outlook. When people decry the £28 billion a year that my party is committed to spending on greening the economy, I have to say to them, just look at what a fraction of that could do for the car industry. I believe it could be money well spent. However, we can also do other things better.”
“I am pleased to say that our request to meet the Minister was granted, just before this debate in fact—what a great coincidence that was—because we think there needs to be recognition that there is a lot of chicken and egg in this situation. If we do not have the gigafactories, we will not have the car plants; if we do not have the car plants, we will not have the gigafactories. As my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North said, we all have to succeed in this. It cannot be just one or two plants. For the future to work in this sector, we all have to succeed. Let us get more of these gigafactories up and running, with spades on the ground in the next 12 months, before we get the point where the sector decides that there just will not be the capacity to move forward with a viable UK car industry.”
“We know, as we have heard already, that we need at least eight or possibly nine gigafactories to make the UK car industry viable, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) said, we may have half a gigafactory coming on stream, or maybe two at best, if we are lucky. He told us in some detail about the struggles to get that gigafactory up and running in his constituency, and that should tell us that this needs full attention. I know my hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) has been actively campaigning to get a gigafactory site in his constituency capable of serving not only Vauxhall Motors but probably also JLR and some other factories in the region.”
“Look at the evidence given to the Business and Trade Committee about the challenges that we face. These are some of the quotes given to the Committee on the matter recently: “At the moment, the UK does not have a strategy. It does not have a runner in this race…Capital is far more incentivised to go to the US.” Right now there is no comparison with what is on offer with the Inflation Reduction Act, and what is on offer in Europe. That is unfortunate, but it is the reality of where we are. The problem is that when other nations are putting in massive amounts, not putting in that level of cash makes us uncompetitive. It is difficult for shareholders to make a positive decision if we are not putting the same amounts on the table. That is what the industry has been very clearly telling us.”