Nissan in Sunderland — House of Lords, 2019-02-05
Topic: Foreign Trade
Oliver Michael Robert Eden (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a smallish error of 90%. I have at least corrected it I welcome the comments of the noble Lord, Lord McNicol. I agree that this is a blow to Sunderland. It would have liked those extra jobs, but we have to remember that there are still 7,000 jobs in Sunderland that have been there for some time, largely because of the work originally done by my former right honourable friend Lady Thatcher when she, as Prime Minister, encouraged Nissan to come here. There are some 35,000 more jobs in the supply chain. This is good for Nissan, Sunderland and the whole of the north-east The noble Lord accepted that Brexit was not the only factor and that there were other problems in the whole automotive industry. Yes, there are. If the noble Lord would care to look—I recommend that the noble Lord, Lord Fox, does so—there are problems in the automotive industry throughout Europe in a big way. This is nothing to do with Brexit; it is because of changes we are making to regulation, changes to diesel, changes to the Chinese market and so on. I could go on. It is not all related to Brexit We have a world-leading and highly productive automotive sector, generating a turnover of some £78 billion—£6.5 billion GVA—and directly employing 65,000 people. Over the past two years we have continued to see further investment decisions. Britain has won competitive decisions on allocation of new car models for Nissan, Toyota, BMW and PSA Vauxhall, creating jobs in Sunderland, Derbyshire, Oxford and Luton. We still have an industry that we can be proud of and that can continue to do well The motivations for Nissan’s decision must be a matter for Nissan. It has to make decisions relating to its workforce where its plants are throughout the world. We accept that Brexit will be one small part of that and, as Nissan said, that it is still waiting for clarity on what the future trading relationship between the UK and the EU will look like. We therefore repeat our request for UK and EU negotiators to work collaboratively towards an orderly, balanced Brexit that will continue to encourage mutually beneficial trade. That is what Her Majesty’s Government will continue to do, as my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has made clear. We do not want a no-deal exit. As my right honourable friend said, we will work towards the meaningful vote as soon as possible. The noble Lord, Lord Fox, also asked about the commercially sensitive nature of that letter, which he rather cynically suggested my right honourable friend the Secretary of State had released only now because it suited him. My right honourable friend said at the time, back in 2016, that it was commercially sensitive as a result of discussions with Nissan. Nissan made it clear that supplier negotiations were under way. Those negotiations have now completed and it is therefore a matter that can be released. As my right honourable friend made clear, we are more than happy to do so Finally, I was asked whether the United Kingdom Government notified the EU of the £61 million support. I can give that assurance. It has been given on many occasions. The grant award was fully compliant with EU state aid rules. Details of the award were shared with the EU and published on its transparency website.