‘No control over the future’

Countdown presenter, Apprentice star, and Swindon native Nick Hewer this week highlighted the crisis now engulfing his hometown amid Honda’s proposed factory closure.

Appearing as guest editor on the radio programme BBC Wiltshire with Ben Prater on Tuesday (April 2), Hewer, who is backing Unite’s #SaveHondaSwindon campaign, interviewed Honda workers as well as automotive industry experts.

“Once you let your own British manufacturing go, you’ve got absolutely no control over the future,” Hewer said, while noting that 450 component suppliers from all over the country ship parts into Swindon.

“Each employs people across the UK,” he added.

Swindon is no stranger to big industry leaving the town – in 1986, the rail works on which so many jobs depended shut down.

Andy Binks, a former rail worker, recounted the fear people felt after rail works jobs disappeared in Swindon.

“You didn’t know what you were going to do – there were a whole raft of engineers all looking for the same jobs,” he told BBC Wiltshire. “Fortunately, at that time Honda had just arrived in Swindon, and that was a natural progression for a lot of people I knew. They got jobs in Honda.”

Now, people in Swindon are likewise fearful, but at a time of crisis for UK manufacturing, there is little left in the area to fill the gaping hole Honda will leave if it goes.

Hewer spoke to Honda worker Dave Roberts, 47, who joined the company as an apprentice and has worked at the Swindon plant for more than half his life.

Roberts said that he first heard the news about the Honda factory closure circulating as rumour on social media.

“I thought, ‘no, surely not’,” he said. “And nothing had come back from the Japanese; they’d made no comment to these rumours. Then we see a few people walking around the factory and we think, something is happening here. Then they announced it the following day — I felt physically sick when I heard the news.”

Roberts explained the impact it will have on his future plans.

“I’ve been planning for the next few years for me and my family,” he said. “My daughter is in her last year in college and she wants to take a year out and go to university.  I think, is this going to affect her dream, because I know the expense of it is going to be on me – at least some of it anyway. Obviously we’re planning for holidays, as you do because you work for your fun, holidays, time with your family.”

‘Huge problem’

Andrew Graves, a professor from the University of Bath and auto industry expert, highlighted the reasons fuelling the Honda factory closure decision and the slump in the auto industry and manufacturing as a whole, including a downturn in the demand for diesel cars, Brexit uncertainty, and the Trump administration’s trade war with China.

“I think emergency is not a bad word now [to describe manufacturing in the UK],” he said. “In 1979, when Margaret Thatcher came in, we had nearly 40 per cent of our GDP in manufacturing; that’s collapsed to just 10 per cent today.”

“Manufacturing is one of the few things that actually creates wealth, that creates high-valued jobs. And it creates a huge supply chain,” Graves went on to say. “For every one person who works at an assembly plant, there are ten people that actually rely on that. Once you have 3,500 people in Swindon made redundant, you’re looking at a huge problem.”

He noted that much of the UK’s manufacturing woes stem from the way the government has failed to structure an economy that works for everyone, not just shareholders.

“We do suffer from a problem in this country which is short-termism,” he said. “And shareholder value is absolutely vital in the British system where if you look in Germany, shareholders are treated lower than pond-life since the Second World War, so they can invest in short-, medium- and long-term goals. And that has really been at the root of the German economic miracle, particularly in manufacturing.”

The latest spotlight on Honda by BBC Wiltshire comes at a time when Unite is continuing its fight to save the plant, following a march and rally last week (March 30) in Swindon that drew thousands. The union is encouraging everyone to contact their MP to back the #SaveHondaSwindon campaign and to sign the a Honda petition, which to date has garnered more than 16,000 signatures, including from Nick Hewer himself.

The stakes have been raised higher after the latest car manufacturing figures showed a continued fall in car sales.

Car registration figures released today (April 4) by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) showed demand for new cars fell 3.4 per cent in March.

Commenting on the figures, Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner said, “The government’s Brexit chaos, weakening global demand and ministers’ demonisation of diesel are all combining to put the jewel in the crown of UK manufacturing in the slow lane.

“With investment plummeting, job losses racking up and Honda planning to leave the UK, it’s time for the government to wake up before it’s too late,” he added.

“In addition to continuing to work with Unite in putting a package together to persuade Honda to stay in the UK, ministers must start properly supporting the transition to electric and alternative powered vehicles with the massive investment needed to make the UK a world leader.”