'Don't snap the investment wallet shut - our jobs depend on it'

Boris Johnson cut the ribbon at Nissan but we know who really delivered – the workers. We’ve battled for years for UK battery manufacturing.

At long last we’ve got somewhere – but this first plant mustn’t be the last. A global green revolution is underway and the UK needs at least another six giga-factories just to keep us at the races.

Germany isn’t waiting around, investing over €1 billion to deliver heartland jobs. Businesses are hungry for green opportunities and committed government partners.

But employers I deal with every day are tearing their hair out at the UK government’s half-baked embrace of the green jobs potential.

Ministers, get a move on.  Signal in huge flashing lights that the UK is the place to invest.  Let drivers know they can go green confident that they’ll get from A to B hitch-free via a nationwide rapid charge network.  Unite’s members are standing by to build it.

Nissan workers rightly celebrate their game-changing plant. But workers at Vauxhall, JLR, Ford, Toyota and BMW need the same.

PM, hundreds of thousands of jobs – and our planet’s health – depend on you stepping up.  Don’t snap the investment wallet shut.

This is the green jobs moment – miss it and won’t come around again.

By Steve Turner, Unite assistant general secretary