KELVIN HOPKINS MP SUPPORTS CAR WORKERS
Vauxhall car workers are refusing to accept the closure of the Luton plant and they have my full support in their campaign. Jobs must be saved, both for those working now and for future generations. Luton needs to hang on to its car plant and should really be looking to expand in the future.
And why do I say this? Well, Britain imports many more cars than it exports, so existing car plants do not even produce enough vehicles for the British market. As a manufacturing nation, we should be producing more cars, not less.
Luton is an efficient plant producing good cars with quality build. And the workforce has made great concessions on pay to secure the plant's future and the investment in the Vectra replacement. The workers have done everything asked of them, but the company has reneged on agreements and promises.
The workforce and their trade unions are not taking this lying down, and the campaign for keeping the plant open and bringing in the new model will go on. This is all about the big picture, but on the human side, hundreds of families in Luton will be worrying about their futures and their livelihoods. Will they still have a job in a year's time, and could their children be making Vauxhall cars in 10 years time? And then there are the hundreds of other employees in Luton whose jobs and livelihoods could be under threat if Vauxhall goes.
I am giving my total support to the campaign, under the guidance of the local trade unions. I shall be talking again to Ministers so that they too are aware of local feeling and the wishes of the workforce.
We must also be aware that there are wider issues at stake.
Remote multi-national moguls cannot just close down factories when they feel like it without regard to the workers in those plants, the local economies and the interests of the countries were they are located. Globalisation and global companies must be held in check by governments and trade unions, working together across the world. The free-market cannot go unchecked with big business riding rough shod over the interests of ordinary people and in Britain we must look at how best we can protect and sustain our manufacturing industries. Services and the financial sector are not enough to sustain a modern prosperous economy. We have to continue to produce real things too, including cars, which is why the Vauxhall plant is so important, and not just for Luton but the whole of Britain. Luton Vauxhall makes good cars and the company sells vast numbers of good Vauxhall cars to British people every year. We should continue to make a substantial proportion of those cars and not allow production simply to be shipped abroad.
The Vauxhall name derives from Vauxhall in London where the cars were first made a hundred years ago. We should continue to make Vauxhalls in the country of Vauxhall and where the first Vauxhall cars were made.
Note: Kelvin Hopkins MP is Secretary of the Labour Backbench Manufacturing Group of MPs. Before entering Parliament, he worked for 23 years as a full time trade union officer.
