Baroness Donaghy (Lab)

I thank my noble friend the Minister for the Statement. This must go down as one of the more difficult jobs that any Minister has to do in any circumstances, so I thank her for the clarity of her replies so far. My sympathies go to the families of the direct and indirect workers, the shopkeepers and all those members of the community who are always affected by these closures or proposed closures. As I come from a family where most of them worked in manufacturing, we have had that experience. That was in the Midlands, not Luton. This all brought to mind my noble friend the late Lord McKenzie of Luton, the amount of work that he did to improve the prosperity of Luton and how he would be feeling today and fighting for that community. Can my noble friend the Minister say a little more about the efforts to find jobs and improve the prospects of transfer for those workers who are directly affected? We know this is a global issue; there is no point in pretending otherwise. When some of us who were members of the EU Internal Market Sub-Committee and then the EU Services Sub-Committee visited various research plants, they showed us the exciting developments that were taking place in car manufacturing. If only we were a bit quicker at developing research into practical production. That is a failure that this country has experienced for a long time. The work and the knowledge are there, and the Minister has indicated that we are further supporting that research. Will she confirm that? There was an implication by the Opposition Front Bench spokesperson that Stellantis was abandoning production. Can she confirm that Stellantis is developing production at Ellesmere Port and that it has not abandoned manufacturing in this country? One issue where politics and government come in is in the provision of consistency. One of the difficulties that manufacturing has had over the years is that Governments do not provide consistency and long-term objectives. Can my noble friend the Minister assure the House that there will be consistent government policies rather than chopping and changing, so that industry and manufacturers know where they stand for years to come?