Manufacturing is transitioning at a pace not seen since the Industrial Revolution. Whether it’s the rapid plant-level introduction of automated robotics, control, and management systems directed by algorithms and artificial intelligence, or pressures from governments and consumers to address genuine concerns like climate change, the impact on working people can be seen in decisions being taken every day. Westminster isn’t listening, and hasn’t been for a long time. Take Honda’s recent devastating decision to close its Swindon factory. The media tried to frame the issue around Brexit — Remainers say thousands of jobs would be safe if we weren’t leaving the European Union, meanwhile company bosses deny it has anything to do with it. But Honda’s decision in Swindon is actually about so much more than the here and now. Of course, crashing out of the EU without a deal would have a significant impact in an industry reliant upon just-in-time, synchronised delivery of components to maintain daily production, with some 350 lorries a day arriving at the Honda plant from EU suppliers. On the other hand, Honda bosses can’t pretend that the EU’s trade deal with Japan, giving the company near frictionless trade without actually having to locate within Europe, hasn’t had an impact on their business investment decision. If Theresa May refuses to drop her ideological red lines on membership of a customs union and single market access, it will be easier and cheaper to import vehicles from Japan than from a post-Brexit Britain just twenty-two miles away. The Honda crisis, mirrored across the car industry, shines a light on what the UK must do to mitigate both the impact of Brexit and global shifts away from the combustion engine. If we are to protect our manufacturing base, as well as hundreds of thousands of skilled jobs and the families and communities that rely upon them, the British motor industry needs government intervention, investment in infrastructure, and innovation. It needs an integrated, comprehensive industrial strategy.

A Race to the Bottom The message from the first meeting of the Honda task force, launched by business secretary Greg Clark in response to the firm’s bombshell announcement, was that Swindon could and should be at the core of an innovative transition from combustion engines to fuel cell and electrical propulsion. Another message of support from a task force is one thing, but government investment in our economic ‘jewel in the crown’ halved over the last year. Energy minister Claire Perry was on the Today programme on the morning that school students walked out in protest at climate change. There she claimed, unchallenged, that the UK was driving the revolution to electric vehicles (EVs), boasting of how we make one in five of these vehicles sold in the EU. She added that by bringing in electric and hydrogen trains we are stepping up government action to cut harmful emissions. In reality, one in five of a very small market is hardly any at all. Following the disastrous demonisation of diesel by the government, UK diesel sales have tumbled 42 per cent year-on-year while sales of alternative fuelled vehicles including electric have risen by just 3.9 per cent. The fact is that without the necessary infrastructure and a public procurement strategy pump priming EV sales, they remain conscience acquisitions of the middle classes, often a second or third car left little-used in a driveway. The move away from diesel and petrol to plug-in electric or hydrogen vehicles is a huge challenge. It needs serious government support for manufacturers, public investment in green energy generation, hydrogen capture, and research, and the development of battery and fuel cell technologies. It requires action to ensure we manufacture and recycle here in the UK, targeted procurement of company and public sector fleets, car share schemes, a tax strategy, and incentives, including free access to public transport, as well as greater vehicle choice. Even a small portion of our £268 billion public procurement budget could significantly assist in transitioning public service vehicles, taxi, rail, and bus fleets to clean fuel. Yet such innovative and strategic investment is almost entirely absent. This is even the case when it comes to transforming existing infrastructure, such as street lighting, or providing greater availability of hydrogen in filling stations. Countries like Norway and China are implementing long-term strategies for the mass uptake of EVs, while Britain is being left behind. The government’s Road to Zero strategy paper emerged in 2018, more than a year after Michael Gove announced, without consulting the auto industry or trade unions, that there would be a ban on the sale of diesel and petrol vehicles by 2040. The paper talked about ‘ambitions’ rather than ‘targets’, before saying that ‘at least 50 per cent, and as many as 70 per cent, of new car sales and up to 40 per cent of new van sales [would be] ultra-low emission by 2030.’ Information about how this twenty-three-fold increase could be achieved without significant government intervention was not forthcoming. State investment in hydrogen technology is even more negligible. An ambitious government could do so much with it: hydrogen fuel has water emissions and lacks the ‘range anxiety’ issues often associated with EVs, where drivers worry that their battery will run out before reaching their destination. Yet there are just a handful of hydrogen filling stations across the UK and most of those are within London’s M25 motorway. Compare that to Japan, home to Honda, Nissan, and Toyota, which is aiming to have 160 refuelling stations by March 2021 to support a fleet of 40,000 hydrogen vehicles. The UK is home to leading hydrogen supply and storage companies, and has hosted much of the innovation breakthroughs that have propelled the technology to this point. But, without action now, it will become another technology we’ve failed to invest in through to production, preferring instead to make money for corporations by flogging licences to manufacture overseas while Britain continues its slide towards becoming an almost completely service sector economy.