Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves interview, E.ON ,Kingswinford.

Express & Star

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves MP interview,  Kingswinford.

Transcript

00:00 I see Sir Daniel Walton here at the Express Star, we're here at Shadow Chancellor Rachel

00:05 Greaves, how's the talk going?

00:12 It's been great, it's great to be here in Dudley today and to meet some fantastic people

00:17 training up in some of the jobs and industries of the future. Some people who have left previous

00:24 jobs and have come to work here and other people who were fitting gas boilers and doing

00:31 normal metering jobs but are now training up to put in charging points for electric

00:36 vehicles, solar panels, batteries and they're really excited because they know that these

00:41 are growth areas and there's going to be jobs for many years to come and I've committed

00:46 that if I am Chancellor in the next Labour government that we would create, help create

00:52 because businesses create jobs, but help create 30,000 jobs here in the West Midlands in some

00:59 of the energy industries to boost our energy security, to get good jobs here in Britain,

01:05 to get people's bills down which is really crucial especially at the moment and then

01:10 help us on that transition to get to net zero in the energy industries of the future.

01:15 Absolutely, so obviously a big part of the talk today was the 31,000 jobs, can we just

01:21 talk about that a little bit? So yeah if you could just talk about the 31,000 jobs in the

01:26 long run.

01:27 Yeah, so here at E.ON they're training 100 people a year, that's just one company here

01:32 in Dudley, training people up to fit in new electric vehicle charging points, heat pumps,

01:39 batteries and solar panels and they said if you had a great partnership with business,

01:45 if Labour comes in and rolls out our warm homes plan for example to insulate five million

01:51 homes in the first term of a Labour government, they'd be able to create more jobs because

01:54 they'd have more certainty and so we are confident that we can ramp this up and get jobs and

02:00 also a crucial part of it here in the West Midlands which is of course the home of the

02:04 car manufacturing sector in Britain, what a gigafactory here and I've committed that

02:09 we will have a gigafactory here in the West Midlands, Labour nationally working with a

02:15 Labour mayor I hope in the West Midlands to get that gigafactory because that's crucial

02:20 for securing jobs in the car manufacturing sector here in the West Midlands. So it's

02:26 a whole range of jobs from producing batteries, producing cars, retrofitting homes, better

02:33 insulating them, to take £500 off of people's bills every year to help people be able to

02:39 charge their electric vehicles, there's lots and lots of jobs available and you know in

02:44 other parts of the country those jobs might be in green hydrogen or carbon capture and

02:47 storage or renewable ready ports, floating offshore wind, every part of the country will

02:52 make its contribution and we'll see job creation here in the West Midlands. The thing that

02:57 I'm most excited about is the opportunities in the car industry, there's also been massive

03:02 opportunities in our warm homes plan to retrofit homes so that people's bills come down.

03:09 Absolutely yeah and doing a walk like this where you've talked to some of the apprentices

03:13 who are obviously coming up into those sort of roles that you'd be filling as well, it's

03:16 been enlightening has it?

03:17 Yeah it's been great, it's been fantastic to meet some people who work here in Dudley,

03:23 one woman was saying that she did voluntary work before she came here, she's got four

03:27 kids at school but because of what Eon is willing to do and how flexible working she

03:32 was able to get back into paid employment, you can see that's had a big impact on her

03:36 and her confidence, also the income of her family. I spoke to another guy who was a social

03:41 worker and he wanted to retrain as an electrical engineer and now he's doing that here in Dudley.

03:48 Now actually people are coming from Blackburn, from Dewsbury, from Kinkleaf, up from London

03:53 to train here in Dudley in these jobs and industries in the future and that's really

03:58 exciting that here in Dudley you are training people up to do those jobs and it's great

04:04 to see that investment here in the West Midlands and I know that something that Richard is

04:08 really excited about is about bringing higher skilled jobs, paying better wages to support

04:16 local high streets, support local families and that's something working with businesses

04:20 located in the West Midlands like Eon here in Dudley that we can do together.

04:25 Absolutely, and finally, you were talking a little bit about the Gigafactory as well,

04:30 what's the outlook on that sort of thing? A bit of an adventure forward is it?

04:36 Yeah, we've made a commitment to it. As part of our national wealth fund we would invest

04:42 in new Gigafactories and we have already identified the West Midlands, I mean obviously the West

04:47 Midlands because of its history in car manufacturing. We see a really exciting car manufacturing

04:54 future in the West Midlands but to do that we do need that battery capability here in

05:00 the West Midlands. I was in Coventry, I think it was two weeks ago, at the Manufacturing

05:07 Technology Centre there, really exciting place, great research and innovation happening, working

05:13 with local businesses as well. We know we've got the skills, we know we've got the capabilities,

05:19 what we need is a government investing alongside industry in those big opportunities and also

05:24 getting return for taxpayer on that investment and leveraging in that private sector investment

05:29 as well. We've got that ambition because we want those jobs, paying good wages that you

05:34 can support a family on here in the West Midlands and we think we can get 31,000 of them here

05:40 with the Labour government.

05:41 Absolutely, Richard?

05:42 Just to reinforce what Rachel said, it's great opportunities to invest in skills and training,

05:50 create better jobs, create better paid jobs for people in this region, put more money

05:54 in their pockets and grow our economy here and that's what we desperately need to do.

05:59 The measures and the interventions that Rachel sets out are the best way of doing that and

06:03 that's the best way we can make the biggest difference to people that live here. We've

06:07 got some really big challenges, the Tories have written off a few of our paths, we can't

06:12 let them write off our future too.

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