Jaguar Land Rover

Lots of workers at Jaguar Land Rover live in Hodge Hill, and they’ll be worried about the plans that Jaguar Land Rover announced today.

I rang the directors to discuss their plans this afternoon. Here’s what they said.

Firstly, and most importantly, JLR said that they are absolutely committed to the West Midlands – and want to build ‘significant’ numbers of new cars in the region. I think the firm will need the same number of workers in the region to build all the new models, which is why JLR has said they don’t want to see compulsory redundancies.

Secondly, when I asked whether government was doing everything they could, JLR said yes – and they were especially grateful for the £10 million of government aid to build new models.

I agreed to lobby hard for the kind of automotive research institute that will help keep our industry at the world’s cutting edge. Long term, that’s the way we boost manufacturing jobs, not see them go abroad.

The company must discuss these changes with the trade unions, and I’ll be in touch with them in due course.

I’ll keep you up to date with news as I hear it.