Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 5:33 pm on 18 September 2023.
Nusrat Ghani
Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade) (jointly with the Cabinet Office)
5:33,
18 September 2023
The Tata gigafactory announcement ensures that we are front-footed when it comes to gigafactories—it will be one of the largest factories in Europe. The right hon. Member and the Labour party are obsessed with us needing five or eight gigafactories, but it is about capacity. It has been noted that we need, I believe, 89 GW by 2030, and with both Tata and Envision we are two thirds of the way there. That is how we need to compare with the rest of Europe: it is not about the number of factories; it is about the level of capacity that they provide. Even though we have those two in place, we are not complacent and will continue to do everything we can to secure further investment.
The right hon. Member talked about a particular site. Obviously, that will have to go through two funds within my Department, but we will always look at solid investment for even more gigafactory capacity in the UK.