Vauxhall at Ellesmere Port and Battery Manufacturing Strategy Debate

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Department: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

Vauxhall at Ellesmere Port and Battery Manufacturing Strategy

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts
Monday 1st March 2021

(3 years, 1 month ago)

Commons Chamber
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Kwasi Kwarteng Portrait Kwasi Kwarteng
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My hon. Friend raises a crucial point. Clearly, without a successful roll-out of charging points we will struggle to meet the targets we have set ourselves. We have committed £90 million already to facilitate the roll-out of larger-scale charge point infrastructure projects across England for local areas, and we will continue to support that. I would be very happy to have a conversation with him about how we can best do that.

Lilian Greenwood Portrait Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab) [V]
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The Chair of the Select Committee on Science and Technology could not have been clearer: for the British car industry to succeed in the growing electric vehicle market, protecting thousands of jobs, including here in the midlands, we must have UK gigafactories manufacturing electric batteries by the time the rules of origin change. How many UK gigafactories will we have by 2024? What specific steps is the Secretary of State taking to secure them?

Kwasi Kwarteng Portrait Kwasi Kwarteng
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As the hon. Lady will have seen from these questions, we are looking at a number of sites. We are absolutely committed to having at least one gigafactory site, if not more—I think we need more than one—before the next election. I could not be clearer about our commitment to the transition and ultimately to reaching net zero by 2050.