Overview
- News coverage on Tuesday cited a Department for Business and Trade memo warning that, without public support, Tata’s Agratas might build a battery plant in Spain and that JLR could later move car production closer to that site.
- The government has already awarded £380 million to Agratas to secure a Somerset battery factory intended to supply UK-made electric vehicles.
- JLR said it remains committed to building cars in the UK and denied telling ministers it planned to shift production to Spain.
- The Competition and Markets Authority questioned whether evidence for a relocation risk was sufficient and pressed the government on whether the subsidy was proportionate under UK rules.
- Agratas plans around 40GWh of annual capacity in Somerset, which would reduce long-haul shipping of bulky batteries and could help safeguard tens of thousands of JLR-linked jobs.