Lord Mandelson: 'This is no bailout'
Updated on 27 January 2009
Business Secretary Lord Mandelson announces measures to provide a "significant boost" to the motor sector, but insists the industry is not a "lame duck".
The measure announced in the House of Lords include guarantees to unlock loans of up to £1.3bn from the European Investment Bank and a further £1bn in loans to fund investment where appropriate" cover investments which bring "special value" to Britain.
"This industry is not a lame duck and this is no bail-out," he said.
Lord Mandelson said that he was inviting regional development agencies and the Technology Strategy Board to bring forward a "further step change" in research and development programmes into "cleaner engines, lighter cars, plug-in hybrids and components for electric vehicles".
He went on to say that he had tasked new trade and investment minister Mervyn Davies to draw up plans for improving access of the car companies' financing arms to additional funding.
The Business Secretary said the measures would help to make Britain "a world leader in the development and manufacture of low carbon vehicles", saying the sector was "vital to the strength of manufacturing in Britain" and action was needed "to prevent an irreversible loss of capacity, skills and technology".
Responding for the Conservative Party, Lord Hunt of Wirral said the package left "too many important questions unanswered".
"After years of persecuting the motorist, ministers now offer a range of placebos to an industry facing, I believe, the most serious crisis it has ever faced," he said.
