Richard Tice: A Reform government would scrap EV mandate to save Jaguar Land Rover
By forcing companies like JLR to wind down profitable internal combustion engine models ahead of true consumer demand, ministers have effectively forced our flagship manufacturer to cut off its own revenue streams, says Richard Tice
For decades, Jaguar Land Rover has stood a proud symbol of West Midlands manufacturing might. Yet today, thousands of highly skilled engineers and management staff are facing redundancy as the company scrambles to axe £1.7bn in costs.
I feel for those workers, I really do. And I am angry on their behalf. Because what makes this commercial tragedy all the more enraging that it is entirely self-inflicted.
Because while the Labour government will doubtless point to global headwinds to excuse the fallout, the truth is the real culprit in this fiasco is both them and the Conservatives and their boneheaded obsession with net zero.
The Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate, which forces British automakers to meet arbitrary, escalating quotas for electric vehicle sales under threat of crippling financial penalties, is quite possibly one of the most destructive business policies ever drafted.
Rather than just letting consumers decide what vehicles suit them best, the previous Conservative government, which introduced the scheme, chose to place a loaded gun to the head of British car industry.
British consumers are simply refusing to buy over-priced, battery-powered vehicles at the pace bureaucrats demand. Infrastructure remains a shambles, energy costs are through the roof, and the secondhand EV market is in free fall.
By forcing companies like JLR to wind down profitable internal combustion engine models ahead of true consumer demand, ministers have effectively forced our flagship manufacturer to cut off its own revenue streams.
Madness
Compounding this madness are the highest industrial energy tariffs in the developed world.
Unreliable, heavily subsidised green energy policies have driven British power costs to eye-watering levels, making it vastly more expensive to forge steel or assemble a car in Solihull or Halewood than in China or the United States.
While British carmakers are tied up in green regulatory tape, foreign state-subsidised competitors from China, who of course are not burdened with our self-destructive virtue-signalling, are waiting in the wings to flood our market with cheap, subsidised EVs.
So we are gutting high-paying British engineering jobs only to offshore our carbon footprint and supply chains to Beijing.
It is, quite literally, economic Hari-kiri. Even the trade unions thinks its nuts.
A Reform UK would act immediately. We will scrap the ZEV mandate and return freedom of choice to British drivers and manufacturers, abandon the ridiculous 2030 net-zero targets in favour of pragmatic, affordable industrial policy and slashing industrial energy costs by unlocking cheap, native British energy.
We will allow our British automotive sector to thrive by imposing heavy tariffs and tight quotas against Chinese Electric vehicles. We need free fair and patriotic trade. We should not destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs and businesses to virtue signal to ecozealots.
If we want a thriving automotive sector, we must stop forcing our greatest companies to sacrifice themselves on the altar of Net Zero.
It is time for economic reality to take control of the wheel.
Richard Tice is Reform UK’s business, trade and energy spokesman