Dear Kemi
The UK government rightly wants to grow the economy and cut inflation. As Business Minister there are crucial changes you could make to help both aims.
The proposed ban on new petrol and diesel cars will destroy our car making capacity prematurely without replacing it by as much electric car output. Only the UK is proposing such an early write off and closure of so many factories with loss of jobs. Businesses are going to put their remaining petrol and diesel capacity elsewhere. From 2030 UK buyers will import nearly new petrol and diesel cars instead of buying UK ones. Lift the ban to rescue the car industry.
The UK is losing capacity in energy intensive industries like steel, ceramics, glass, fertilisers and much else thanks to having the highest carbon taxes in the world. These drive up prices and progressively close factories. Suspend the emissions trading and carbon tax regime. You can then save the big subsidies you are forced to offer as partial offsets. This action will save a lot of UK jobs and boost other tax revenue.
As the leader of Ministerial efforts to cut out needless regulation, bring forward the repeal of EU laws laying down product specifications. Keep a strong safety law and allow all goods of merchandisable quality to be offered for sale. This will boost innovation and competition.
Co operate with the Energy department in expanding UK supplies of cheap reliable energy. You cannot have a successful industrial strategy with dear power, unreliable power and import dependence.
The EU with an overzealous net zero policy has hit our industry hard whilst boosting world CO 2 by relying too much on imports with extra CO 2 in manufacture and transport. Please back made in the UK, and change these damaging policies.
Yours sincerely
John Redwood
