Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:58 pm on 13 September 2016.
When I was at the plant it was made absolutely clear to me that tariffs were the issue. The plant is the most efficient engine plant that Ford has. The workforce there is excellent but they export every engine they make. It’s wholly export driven. Tariffs would mean a 5 per cent component tariff going to the assembly plant and possibly a 10 per cent tariff coming back in again to the UK. It’s a 15 per cent tariff. Nobody can cope with that. Many businesses in the States said the same thing to me: they’re waiting to see what happens with regard to what the UK does. I’ll be straight with him: I think if we manage to secure tariff-free access to the European market I think the problem is resolved. That is what business investors are looking for. They’re all European operations. They see the UK as part of a European operation. Anything that puts a barrier between the UK and the rest of the European operation is bad for the UK operation. So, the Ford workforce are excellent, they’re efficient, but they cannot be put in a situation where tariff barriers would interfere with the future viability of the plant, which is why I’ve been absolutely clear that whatever model the UK adopts—and there are four different models that could be adopted that give pretty much full access to the European single market—that the UK Government needs to declare that position now in order to give that certainty, not just to Ford but to all our investors from overseas.