Blair McDougall MP: speeches

Speeches

• 9 Sept 2026 · Jaguar Land Rover: Redundancies · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point, as she always does, on behalf of her constituents who work in automotive. Many of those workers, because they are very highly skilled and because Jaguar Land Rover is such a prestigious organisation to have worked in, will find themselves in work again very quickly, but that is almost not the point. This will be like mourning for them, because they will be leaving a company with which they are deeply connected emotionally. We are investing £4 billion in the automotive industry—it is the biggest investment in the automotive sector in post-war Britain, as I said earlier—precisely to ensure that the high-quality jobs that her constituents rely on, not just in the big automotive primes but all across the supply chain, are there for her constituents for generations to come. I will continue to work with her on that.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Jaguar Land Rover: Redundancies · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for those questions. She mentioned the cyber-attack and the £1.5 billion guarantee we gave to stand behind Jaguar Land Rover. That guarantee is still in place; it is there as a form of market reassurance for the company. JLR has not drawn on it yet, but it has served its purpose in reassuring the market. The company is clear that that is only one of the factors; it is as much about challenges in the Chinese market and global trade challenges. The hon. Member rightly asked about the relationship with Europe. I reassure her that at posts in capitals across Europe, Ministers, like me, are constantly engaging with member states and their representatives both on rules-of-origin issues and on the “made in Europe” agenda. One of the encouraging things we see in that process is those arguments being made not only by our industry but by the deeply interconnected other side of the supply chain across the channel with member states. I reassure her that we are working hard on that.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Jaguar Land Rover: Redundancies · Hansard source

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  Absolutely, I recognise that it is our job to lower costs on the industry. That is why, for example, we are taking action on energy costs to make them more competitive. That should take us roughly to the European average so that we can compete with our nearest neighbours. I pay tribute to the hon. Member’s constituents who are staff at Jaguar Land Rover in Solihull. Just a few days ago, I was at Jaguar Land Rover in Coventry, seeing the extraordinary, almost sci-fi level of work done there. It is right that we express concern and worry for our constituents, but we should also celebrate the incredible manufacturing being done now, which will continue for generations to come.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Jaguar Land Rover: Redundancies · Hansard source

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  We are working very closely on behalf of the hon. Lady’s constituents, who I know will be troubled at the moment, and with the local mayors and local authorities. Most of the conversations and the asks made of us are about ensuring that the wider automotive supply chain and advanced manufacturing sector in the region continues to thrive, so that those highly skilled workers—they come from a company with an incredible pedigree—can more easily move into other jobs in the sector, and the skills can be maintained in the hon. Lady’s part of the world.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Jaguar Land Rover: Redundancies · Hansard source

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  This is a day to talk about the workers, who are deeply worried and are being communicated to by Jaguar Land Rover about the future of their employment, so I do not wish to be too political in my response. I will say, however, that I understand that it is the job of the Opposition to take fire at the Government, but we have to be careful in this House to make sure that industry is not collateral damage. The hon. Lady talks about the supply chain. JLR has been very clear, publicly and in private to us and to the unions, that the production staff are not going to be impacted. This is not Jaguar Land Rover retreating from investment, lowering its ambitions and withdrawing from markets. The organisation is as ambitious as it has been, and it has as good a product—a world-beating product—as it ever had. The hon. Lady asks what we are doing to tackle the headwinds that Jaguar Land Rover has cited when talking about this decision. There is a little bit of a habit developing in this House of the Conservatives asking why we are not fixing the damage that they did quickly enough. The British industrial competitiveness scheme that is coming in never existed under the previous Government. It will save an enormous amount for automotive manufacturers and their supply chain. The hon. Lady rightly mentioned trade deals and recognised our trade deal with the United States, which no other country enjoys. We can all understand why she did not mention the relationship with Europe and the impact of trade deals that we inherited there, which Ministers across the Government are working incredibly hard to deal with at the moment—for example, with “Made in Europe” and rules of origin. Finally, we inherited the ZEV mandate from the hon. Lady’s party— [ Interruption. ] The right hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Holden) says from a sedentary position, “Well, change it.” We did change it. We changed it last year, in part to help plug-in hybrids, which was of enormous importance to Jaguar Land Rover. As I said in my statement, we have recognised the scale of the challenges that the automotive sector faces worldwide. The hon. Lady makes a lot of criticisms, but I say to her that Volkswagen, which is letting 100,000 staff go, is not governed by a Labour Government. We have recognised the global headwinds. It is why we are putting into the automotive sector the biggest investment of the post-war period. Rather than criticising the industrial strategy, she should get in the car and travel that journey with us.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Jaguar Land Rover: Redundancies · Hansard source

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  I am glad that my hon. Friend has had that reassurance for her constituents, but she will know that they will be affected by this, in the sense that they feel that they are part of the JLR family; it has such a strong identity as a company. As I said, we are working carefully with representatives of the industry on the issue of Chinese imports. It is worth saying that the industry is nervous about the issue. It is worried about the impact of the increased number of Chinese EVs coming into our market, but it also wants to be able to access the Chinese market, and does not want to get into a retaliatory situation, so we do not rule anything out, but we are being very careful as we work with the industry on that issue.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Jaguar Land Rover: Redundancies · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend raises a really important point—one that I confess has not come across my desk yet. After this statement, I will make sure that we are raising this point with the relevant regulators, and will perhaps talk to friends in the Treasury about it, because it would be awful if really skilled workers who have a redundancy payment that they have earned through years of hard work have it snatched away by disreputable finance companies.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Jaguar Land Rover: Redundancies · Hansard source

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  Well, I agreed with the hon. Lady right up until the end there: we have to keep investing in JLR to secure those jobs. I met some of her constituents last week and felt their sense of pride. This is not just about jobs or economic production; it is part of the sense of local pride in her area. When we and the Secretary of State met the union and management earlier on, we pressed them on exactly those issues. The conversation was about the phasing of those changes, how they interact with the roll-out of the new models and when those job losses would kick in. The union and the business will continue to work on that, and we will continue that conversation as well.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Jaguar Land Rover: Redundancies · Hansard source

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  With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I wish to make a statement on the Government’s support for Jaguar Land Rover and our wider automotive sector. I offer my apologies on behalf of the Secretary of State, who is on his way to France to talk to our trading partners there. As the House will be aware, Jaguar Land Rover recently announced approximately 4,000 redundancies as part of a £1.7 billion cost saving effort, and the company now intends to consult on the job losses that are planned over the next two years. Although Jaguar Land Rover has stated that these losses will not impact production staff, the news will undoubtedly come as a terrible shock to all of the company’s employees. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I have been in regular contact with the company and the relevant unions since the Government became aware. We have made it clear that we want to see the company reducing the impact on workers through the consultation period and that all employees deserve maximum clarity on the extent and focus of its plans for non-production workers, which the Business Secretary and I encouraged the company to do earlier today in a meeting with the company and the Unite general secretary. We recognise, too, the impact that those redundancies will have on local skills. There is a deep advanced manufacturing skills base in the west midlands, and this Government are working together with employers and the combined authority to retain that skills base within the regional economy, including by backing Mayor Richard Parker’s £500,000 support package for JLR workers taking voluntary redundancy. The Department for Work and Pensions also stands ready to support anyone affected through its rapid response service, which provides support and advice to employers and employees facing redundancy, including help with finding new work and training. Hon. Members will know that, over recent years, Jaguar Land Rover has been forced to confront a series of challenges, many of which have been shared by vehicle producers all over the world, which I will say more about shortly. One of the unique challenges the company faced last year, however, was a significant cyber-attack that temporarily halted production for several weeks. However, with help and support from this Government, including a £1.5 billion loan guarantee, it resumed operations and reopened assembly lines. Make no mistake: when British industry is attacked, we will step in to defend it, and defend it strongly, in our national interest. In this case, however, Jaguar Land Rover has cited global market conditions as one of the principal reasons for job reductions. Indeed, similar announcements from manufacturers such as Volkswagen and BMW underscore the challenging global headwinds that nearly all automotive manufacturers are facing right now: tariffs, high energy costs, the transition to electric vehicles, and stiff competition from overseas producers. We recognise those challenges, and are using our modern industrial strategy to help our car industry to rise to them. Through our DRIVE35 programme—driving research and investment in vehicle electrification—we are ploughing more than £4 billion into our automotive sector to support the electrification of vehicle plants alongside batteries, electric motors, hydrogen fuel cells and power electronics. It is the biggest investment in our car industry of the post-war era. Jaguar Land Rover has benefited from that funding, with £40 million of public and private investment going into advanced software-defined vehicles, supply chain resilience and lightweighting. Alongside that funding for innovation and next-generation technologies, hon. Members will know that the Government have made a considerable grant investment into Agratas’s gigafactory in Somerset, which is strengthening not only the UK’s battery production capability but the automotive industry and companies like Jaguar Land Rover, which will benefit from a secure domestic supply. When it comes to energy costs, our British industrial competitiveness scheme will save more than 10,000 manufacturers up to 25% of their electricity bills. This will almost certainly include some of the biggest companies in the automotive sector, including Jaguar Land Rover. The successful applicants for that scheme will be announced soon. On global market conditions and tariffs, this Government have acted decisively to secure trade agreements that support our nation’s car manufacturers. Our economic prosperity deal, for example, includes a preferential rate of 10% on the first 100,000 UK-made cars exported to the USA each year. The US is obviously a major export market for Jaguar Land Rover—the biggest, in fact—as it is for so many other high-value manufacturers in the UK, which is why we worked so hard to secure that deal. We remain the only country in the world subject to a 10% tariff for automotive exports, with other nations facing a much higher rate. We have placed just as much importance on vehicle exports in the other trade deals we have negotiated since taking office, including the landmark agreement we secured with India—an agreement that reduces tariffs on British-made vehicles from roughly 110% to 10%. This is a significant win for Jaguar Land Rover and other manufacturers, as India is already a huge market, with consumers set to grow by millions in the coming decades as the country’s economy fast expands. I should also touch on the zero emission vehicle mandate, which provides a clear pathway to phase out new petrol and diesel cars and vans. We always said we would keep it under review. We always said that we needed a pragmatic and balanced approach. That is the right thing to do, because discouraging the production of electric vehicles does not make good business sense for anyone. The fact is that consumers want them, with recent stats showing that for the first time in the UK, electric vehicles have outsold petrol cars over a 12-month window. Europe reached a similar milestone recently. Electric is the future. As part of our ambition to reindustrialise our country, we absolutely want those electrical vehicles to be designed and built in Britain. A mandate to steer the industry into that electric future is needed, but, equally, if we accept that zero emissions is the destination, we have to partner with industry to get there. I know that Jaguar Land Rover is of that view too. We are consulting with the company and other manufacturers to ensure that the ZEV mandate works for our automotive industry—that it strikes the right balance, with targets that are ambitious yet realistic. The consultation on the ZEV mandate review closes on 23 October. Jaguar Land Rover remains our largest car manufacturer. It is a linchpin of the UK automotive sector—a company with a long and proud history. Over many decades, it has become synonymous with the best of British design and engineering. That is true for past models such as the E-Type, the XJS, the F-Type, and it is true for the firm’s modern line-up, including the Land Rover Defender and the Discovery. These vehicles endure. Years after production ended, I note that the Jaguar I-PACE is still a vehicle of choice for companies operating driverless cars in the US and those testing them here in the UK. With last week’s launch of the new fully electric Range Rover, I am confident that Jaguar Land Rover will get past this difficult period. It will emerge from it stronger and more competitive, holding its own in the global car market against the best of them from Germany, the United States and China. For our part, we will use our industrial strategy and DRIVE35 to support JLR and the British automotive sector in this journey. In doing so, we will guarantee Britain’s status as a proud, successful car-making nation for many years to come. I commend this statement to the House.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Jaguar Land Rover: Redundancies · Hansard source

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  As I said to other hon. Members, throughout the conversations that we have been having with people in the region, including the mayor and the company, the ask has been that we stand behind the wider sector and supply chain and make sure that things are available in the future. The hon. Gentleman mentioned skills; he will be aware that the changes that we have made—such as the move to shorter, more flexible apprenticeships—are very focused on the automotive industry, so we are already putting significant amounts of funding into advanced manufacturing in the hon. Gentleman’s part of the world and will continue to do so. We stand ready to work with people in the region to maintain skills and manufacturing there, whatever it takes.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Jaguar Land Rover: Redundancies · Hansard source

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  I would absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman, which is precisely why we are taking action, not just through the British industrial competitiveness scheme, but through the supercharger. This is an incredibly important issue, not only for automotive and advanced manufacturing, but for the entire economy, given the impact on our growth, and that is precisely why we are acting on it. In addition to tackling energy costs, investing in innovation is incredibly important, because that is what we will compete on in this global market—not on low costs, but on better ideas and products.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Jaguar Land Rover: Redundancies · Hansard source

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  I thank the Select Committee Chair for that series of questions. I know that for him this is not just a Committee interest but a local interest. I will take his points in reverse order. As I said to my right hon. Friend yesterday in the Select Committee, we have to be very careful about Chinese imports. Our automotive industry is very export-focused, and the industry wants us to be very careful not to do anything in protecting our domestic manufacturers that might hurt them by closing down markets elsewhere. As I said to him yesterday, we are looking carefully at that, but we must be very careful. On energy, we would love to go further than the British industrial competitiveness scheme. It is worth noting that when we initially introduced the proposal for BICS, it was for fewer businesses than will be eligible and will start to apply for it in a matter of days. We will continue to see how far we can go on that, because we are aware of how much of a problem there is for so many parts of industry. Finally, we are working incredibly closely with the mayor. The main request from those involved in the situation at Jaguar Land Rover is that we continue to focus on the support we are giving to them in innovation, for the supply chain and in standing behind them, so that they come out strong and resilient on the other side of these global challenges.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Jaguar Land Rover: Redundancies · Hansard source

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  When my hon. Friend mentioned the Torcal, I thought he might have been referring to my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton). The other day, I was with Bentley representatives at a roundtable at the HORIBA MIRA testing facility in the midlands to talk about exactly those issues. We are working closely with the company on plans for the next stage of its activity, particularly with regard to making the most of the Indian trade deal. I warmly congratulate Bentley on the Torcal. How high-end that vehicle is—1,000 layers of walnut veneer within the interior! This is a seriously impressive product from a company with an incredible heritage.

• 9 Sept 2026 · Jaguar Land Rover: Redundancies · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for the question. I know how important JLR is to her constituents: she makes that clear constantly to me and other Ministers. The key thing we can do is to invest in the company’s future productive capacity. I mentioned the investment in Agratas a moment ago, and recently we made substantial investment through DRIVE35 into software-defined vehicle research in the company. The conversation that we are having with JLR right now is about how to protect not just high-value jobs directly in JLR but the high-value jobs in the wider supply chain that so many of our constituents rely on.

• 2 Sept 2026 · Global Tin Availability · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for his offer of support for the effort. One of Northern Ireland’s key economic strengths is advanced manufacturing, and the importance of tin runs through that sector from top to bottom. Tin underpins so much: advanced manufacturing, automotive production, aerospace, clean energy technologies, data centres, telecommunications and defence, all of which are important for Northern Ireland and the UK at large. If tin is scarce, volatile or increasingly concentrated in a few countries, as hon. Members have mentioned, those pressures can affect investment confidence, productivity and our competitiveness in the sectors within the industrial strategy. It is not enough, as my hon. Friends the Members for St Austell and Newquay and for South East Cornwall (Anna Gelderd) have said, simply to leave this matter to the market. We have a responsibility to make sure that local people benefit from it. As my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall also said, it is essential to our ability to deliver on the industrial strategy as a whole. Critical minerals in themselves are an essential part of the UK economy, but they also underpin everything else that we are trying to achieve. That is why the critical minerals strategy is focused on resilience, improving our understanding of demand, supporting domestic capability where it is viable and environmentally responsible, increasing recycling and working with international partners so that UK businesses are not dependent on fragile or overly concentrated sources of supply. We cannot onshore every part of the supply chain, but where we have those resources—as we clearly do in Cornwall—capable companies, the environmental protections and community support here in the UK, we can make a contribution to that resilience. That is why, for example, we supported the South Crofty tin project through £20 million of equity investment and last week announced a £71 million investment into Tungsten West. As hon. Members have said, exploration and mining are great, but we also want to see more processing, refining and recycling in the UK. That is why we put the £25 million critical minerals accelerator in place: to help viable projects to get over that hump and get into the market. It is why we are introducing BICS to make the energy costs for potential refining projects more affordable and dealing with things like grid connections. The Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mr Reynolds), asked about intelligence. We have instituted the growth minerals list to get a sense of our demand and introduced the demand aggregator to get a sense of that with allies. The Critical Minerals Intelligence Centre published a prospectivity report, which sets out exactly what he asked about in terms of the potential resources, and we work with the British Geological Survey on that basis. As I said, we are working with international partners to make sure that we have reliable prices, diverse sources and material produced to the high standards that the modern economy requires. In conclusion, tin has a major economic footprint. It connects the technologies that power our homes, vehicles, factories and communications. The global availability of tin therefore matters to prices, productivity, resilience and good growth. The Government’s approach is clear: support responsible domestic production where we can, recover more value through recycling, build better data on demand, mobilise finance and work with international partners to diversify supply. By doing so, we can reduce vulnerability, support British industry, create skilled jobs and ensure that the UK economy has access to the critical minerals that it needs for the future. I look forward to working with hon. Friends to that end—and, as I am the only person who has not mentioned Tinder, let me finish by saying that I will always swipe right for my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth.

• 2 Sept 2026 · Global Tin Availability · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. It is also a pleasure to respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) and to congratulate him on securing this debate. It is a further pleasure to be taken back, at least momentarily, to my summer holiday in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Noah Law). I will not say where I would rather be at this particular moment. Scientists have said that the shortest scientifically measurable period of time is 247 zeptoseconds, but I can confirm that my own research has found an even shorter measurable time than that, which is the period between someone being appointed the Minister for critical minerals and all the Labour MPs from Cornwall contacting them to ask for meetings and conversations about the potential for critical minerals in that part of the world. Perhaps appropriately for a debate on mining, they are Stakhanovian in their work effort on this issue. This debate on global tin availability is timely, as has been said. It is not always the mineral that attracts the big headlines, but to respond to the first request of my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth, I confirm that the Government absolutely recognise that tin is central and fundamental to modern economic life. It is the solder that connects circuit boards, semiconductors, data infrastructure, automotive electrics and of course defence technologies. When global tin supply is tight, the impact can be felt far beyond mining markets, in manufacturing costs, supply chain resilience, investment decisions and, ultimately, the UK’s ability to deliver growth, energy security and national security. My hon. Friend’s constituency is absolutely central to that discussion and to meeting those challenges. It is home to significant tin deposits, including the South Crofty tin mine, which has a high-grade tin resource and the potential to re-establish meaningful primary tin production in the UK. That matters not only for Cornwall’s proud mining heritage, which I was going to say goes back to the bronze age, but given that tin is one of the constituent parts of bronze, perhaps it predates the bronze age. Cornwall is the tin isles mentioned by Herodotus. As has been said, however, the future of tin mining is of much more immediate importance, and a source of excitement. The question before us is not simply whether we can mine more tin again, but how a secure, responsible and diverse tin supply can support jobs, industrial competitiveness, clean energy deployment and economic resilience.

• 16 Jul 2026 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  On the point about a competitive rate, I refer the hon. Gentleman to an answer I gave a moment ago on the investment the Government are putting in across the steel industry to ensure costs are reduced. On the orderbook, through the work we are doing on public procurement, we are ensuring that there is a clearer line of sight for British steel producers—both publicly owned British Steel and others—on all the coming work linked to investment in national infrastructure or the industrial strategy, so that they get a fair shake at those contracts.

• 16 Jul 2026 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman on that point. The Government are very clear today that we are seeking that partnership with the private sector across the steel industry. From our side, the partnership comes with significant resources on the table, through the National Wealth Fund, to help the steel industry become more competitive, particularly on energy efficiency.

• 16 Jul 2026 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is quite right to say that steelmaking communities have been impacted by previous Governments standing by rather than intervening —we have seen it in community after community over decades. As a Community trade union member, I am very aware of that. On energy costs, he will be aware of the various interventions that we are making through the supercharger and the uplift in network charging compensation, and we also have the British industrial competitiveness scheme. A key priority for the new board will be looking at ways to reduce costs, and a huge part of that will be investing to help with energy costs.

• 16 Jul 2026 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  I express regret and apologies, Mr Speaker, not only for the issue you just raised, but that we were not able to lay the regulations before Parliament before they came into force. After very careful consideration informed by the significant commercial and diplomatic sensitivities involved in the transfer, and to ensure operational continuity, the Government decided that it was necessary for the acquisition to take place outside of working hours. Following Royal Assent of the Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Act 2026, the Secretary of State has taken the decision that it is necessary, in the public interest, to exercise the powers in the Act to transfer British Steel into public ownership. We have not taken the decision lightly, but we consider that it is the only viable route forward in the circumstances. British Steel is among the UK’s largest steel producers and has an important capability in the production of several essential steel products that are integral to the construction and maintenance of our critical national infrastructure. I reiterate the Government’s thanks to parliamentarians on all sides for their constructive approach during passage of the Act. Today’s decisive action secures British Steel’s immediate future, secures steelmaking in support of our steel strategy, and supports the jobs and steelmaking communities that have underpinned the business for decades.

• 16 Jul 2026 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  As the Minister for Industry has set out, on the issue of cost, it is our intention to continue with the practice under the previous Act of coming to Parliament on a quarterly basis with a written ministerial statement to set out the costs. As we appoint the new board, we will also be keen for the owners and operators of British Steel to be accountable to Select Committees.

• 16 Jul 2026 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  I thank the Father of the House for the spirit in which he asks that question. The key moment for jobs was the intervention last year, which resulted in the cancellation of the consultation on about 2,700 redundancies. The blast furnaces on the site will continue for some time to come. We have said in our steel strategy that we believe the future of the industry is in modernised, cleaner technologies. I am sure that will be at the forefront of the minds of the new board members as they look to transform and modernise the site.

• 16 Jul 2026 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the measures we took were necessary because of the ending of the steel safeguards. Without the measures we took, there was a real prospect of our becoming the global dumping ground for uncompetitively subsidised over-production. That being said, the Minister for Industry, the Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Chris McDonald), has been meeting manufacturers and listening to those concerns. That is why we have the transitional arrangements and have ensured that they will be reviewed after 12 months. It is also, frankly, why we are working so hard with the EU to ensure we get mutual arrangements there as well.

• 16 Jul 2026 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  This decision is of critical importance to the entire economy, our national security and our national infrastructure. However, as the Father of the House has said, it is also a matter of getting to the end of the month for thousands of people. This morning, the workers on the site have been briefed on the decision. We would expect the new board to remain deeply engaged with the workforce, who will be central to ensuring a revitalised and resilient future for British Steel.

• 16 Jul 2026 · British Steel · Hansard source

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  Having got through this urgent question without making any commitments on behalf of my hon. Friend the Minister for Industry, I will give one now and say that I am sure he would agree to the meetings the hon. Gentleman suggests. There are specific arrangements within the trade measures we have taken that are intended to ensure the flow of steel into Northern Ireland, and there is advice for GB companies taking steel products into Northern Ireland. The hon. Gentleman’s question again highlights the importance of having that ongoing conversation with the EU, because we are not the EU’s problem when it comes to steel, and it is not ours.