Vauxhall Hailed as Beacon of Hope in UK Car Industry by Local MP

Westminster – December 22, 2008: Andrew Miller, Labour MP for Ellesmere Port and Neston, has pledged his full support for Vauxhall’s Ellesmere Port manufacturing plant, citing it as a perfect example of why the government and public should be buying British.

Mr Miller said that as well as providing vital employment in his constituency, the Government should also realise that the plant had a ‘very real future’, which would include building the new generation Astra next year. Currently, all five-door Astras are built at Ellesmere Port, around 60 per cent of which go to export.

‘We should support products that are made at home,’ said Mr Miller, ‘For example, many police forces use Vauxhall Astras made in Ellesmere Port. We could sell considerably more to other such people, including to Ministers for the Government fleet.’

Mr Miller also stressed the importance of future investment in environmentally friendly vehicles in the UK, saying that the Government will be making a ‘huge mistake’ if it didn’t engage with UK industry to make vehicles using alternative energies a reality.

Ellesmere Port is already home to the new Astra ecoFLEX model, which emits just 119g/km and achieves 72.4mpg on the Government’s Extra Urban Cycle. Parent company GM is also on the brink of launching the Chevrolet Volt – a groundbreaking plug-in electric vehicle, which will come to the UK in the near future – so Mr Miller’s comments were welcomed by plant officials.

Chairman and MD of GM UK, Bill Parfitt, agreed with Mr Miller’s pleas: ‘Vauxhall is committed to exploring every possible avenue in the pursuit of engineering greener vehicles.‘