A focus on electrification and investment in the UK motor industry should be among the priorities of the new Labour government, says the Vehicle Remarketing Association (VRA)
Philip Nothard, chair at the trade body, said that while it was clear that the administration wouldn’t have large sums of money to spend, it should be concentrated in areas that produce the best results.
“The Labour message throughout their campaign and really for the last 2-3 years has been all about investment and growth, and we believe that two of the key areas that would best respond to funding are electrification and motor manufacturing.
“We’d like to see measures to support the transition to electrification through both an acceleration of the creation of charging infrastructure – especially on urban streets – and direct help for people who want to buy a used EV.
“It’s pretty clear that the used EV market is not yet functioning in anything approaching a normal manner and this really needs to start happening if the government is serious about its approach to zero emissions.
“Also, we need to see more investment for manufacturers who are switching to EVs over this decade. The levels of competition in the market are ferocious, and car and van makers operating in the UK will need support to compete successfully.”
Philip added that the VRA was also interested in what the new government would do to enable training within remarketing and across wider industry.
“Like other sectors, we are facing skills shortages and we’d like to see more done to help us attract and train the people that we need for the future. This is a problem that will affect the development of the industry going forward and needs attention.
“We appreciate that all of these measures are probably not high on the agenda for the new administration or part of their ‘first 100 days’ plan to hit the ground running. However, they are priority areas that need attention for remarketing to succeed and where we’d like to know about the new government’s plans as soon as possible.”