JLR is just the beginning of a crisis in the UK's automotive industry

The car giant's announcement was not unexpected, but it has brought into focus the dangerous cocktail of extortionate energy prices, increased regulatory burden, and the consequences of foreign vehicles being freely imported into the UK.

We welcome the support already announced by the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) for workers facing the threat of redundancies - prompt action is always appreciated.

However, we also want to raise the potential impact this could have on the supply chain, many of whom are members of the Confederation of British Metalforming.

We are in constant conversation with our members about volumes not returning to the levels seen before the Cybersecurity attack, and the growing uncertainty caused by a misjudged ZEV mandate, which requires vehicle manufacturers to sell an increasing annual percentage of fully electric cars and vans every year.

The CBM is today calling on equal support for the downstream supply chain to ringfence the skills and capability these companies bring to UK manufacturing and the ongoing push for greater sovereign capability.

We also want Andy Burnham and his ministers to urgently accelerate the ZEV mandate consultation, ensuring it does not become another exercise in delay.

Without urgent action on energy costs (the UK is 100% and 60% higher than the US and Germany respectively), business rates, labour costs, regulation and the treatment of imported electric vehicles, companies will have fewer incentives to invest in Britain and more reason to shift production and future investment overseas.

The government is therefore asking British manufacturers to invest in the transition to zero-emission vehicles while leaving them exposed to higher operating costs and increasingly intense competition from overseas producers.

Unless ministers act across the full range of pressures facing the sector, the consequences will be felt through reduced investment, lost manufacturing capacity, supply-chain closures and fewer skilled jobs across the UK.

Labour must now use the consultation to reform the ZEV Mandate and deliver a broader package of measures to restore the sector’s competitiveness.

There has been a lot of talk about protecting British Steel and I fully understand why. It is a strategically important material to the UK and our ability to control production of it and the volumes required are both fundamental to our national security.

But I also find myself asking why other vitally important industries are not receiving the same level of attention and dedicated support?

The automotive sector is a prime example. It employs many times more people than the steel industry and supports an enormous network of manufacturers, suppliers, dealerships, logistics businesses, engineers and skilled workers across the country.

Alongside each of the main car manufacturing plants is a community in itself, made up of a host of retail and leisure venues that rely on the spending power of the staff who work there.

The government cannot focus on one industry while overlooking another. Instead, it needs a joined-up industrial strategy that treats energy, taxation, business rates, labour costs, regulation, trade policy, the ZEV Mandate, and the competitive threat from state-supported overseas manufacturers as one connected issue.

The automotive sector needs a government that is awake at the wheel, before more manufacturing capacity, investment and jobs leave the UK.

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Stephen Morley is President of the Confederation of British Metalforming (CBM). The CBM represents the interests of 200 members and 75,000 employees involved in the production of fasteners, forgings, sheet metalwork and cold rolled products.

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