This country needs a bold and ambitious vision for an ‘Electric Vehicle Revolution’ with the North East at the forefront.

The speech made by the shadow business secretary Ed Miliband today laid out the Labour Party’s radical and transformative plan for the UK’s car industry centred around electric cars and the development of Gigafactories.

This has exciting implications for the proposed Britishvolt Gigafactory in my constituency of Wansbeck. The development of this factory will be a huge boost for the region creating thousands of jobs and injecting life into the local economy.

This will begin with Britishvolt in Wansbeck. Rumours of a £200m grant in the coming days for this project is positive news, but we need bolder strokes if we are serious about transforming our automobile industry as well as levelling up in the North.

This region has been calling out for a development like this for decades. The old mining communities have a chance to be reborn at the forefront of the green industrial revolution.

We must not blow this opportunity now. Any investment made would be a commercial investment that will therefore yield future returns to the public purse.