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The collapse into administration of Britishvolt will rekindle concerns for the long-term future of the British car-making industry.

The sector is under extreme pressure to pivot from making cars powered by the internal combustion engine to electric vehicles (EVs). To that end the UK government has decreed that, from 2030, no new petrol or diesel cars will be sold in the UK.

Central to that transition to EVs is the need for a number of new ‘gigafactories’ – plants that could produce electric car batteries at scale – and the Johnson government had targeted at least seven or eight of them.

The assumption among industry analysts is that, due to the weight of EV batteries and the expense of transporting them, they need to be located near to the carmakers. Hence the need to build them in the UK.

That need for local sourcing is amplified by ‘rules of origin’ provisions in the UK’s Brexit deal with the EU which require that 70% of a battery must be built in either the UK or the EU for the EV it powers to be sold tariff-free in the bloc. Four in every five British-built cars are exported and just over half of them are sold to countries in the EU.

It is why Britishvolt was promised £100m from the Automotive Transformation Fund, the £850m taxpayer-backed programme aimed at supporting the electrification of Britain’s automotive supply chain.

So the failure of Britishvolt will be seen as a severe setback to the country’s ambitions for EVs. It casts doubt over what is one of only two gigafactories in the UK towards which meaningful progress was being made, the other being built at Sunderland by the Chinese battery maker Envision, which is partnering Nissan locally.

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Yet some will argue it is premature to extrapolate Britishvolt’s woes to wider prospects for gigafactories in the UK.

Britishvolt has been seemingly cursed from the off.

Its co-founder, Lars Carlstrom, left the company nearly three years ago after it emerged he had been convicted for tax offenses in his native Sweden. There was then confusion when the company announced its factory would not be in Bridgend in south Wales, as originally intended, but at Cambois near Blyth, in Northumberland, where it had been offered more attractive financial incentives to locate.

The South Wales site was selected on the basis of access to key markets and a skilled local workforce
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The original South Wales site was selected on the basis of access to key markets and a skilled local workforce

In the meantime, the company continued to rack up costs, with the monthly salary bill for its 300 employees reported to be £3m.

Britishvolt then pushed back the planned start date for production to 2025, blaming Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for pushing up costs, while a request for government support was made. It later emerged that management had put the company on what was described as ‘life support’ in July.

Then, in August last year, Mr Carlstrom’s co-founder, Orral Nadjari, unexpectedly resigned.

Orral Nadjari
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Orral Nadjari

The Guardian newspaper subsequently reported details of his extravagant spending, revealing that the company had leased a seven bedroom £2.8m mansion with a swimming pool and jacuzzi for executives, as well as hiring a Dubai-based fitness instructor to conduct yoga classes for staff remotely.

Lack of firm supply deals with carmakers

Graham Hoare, the respected former head of Ford of Britain, was hired in his place as an interim chief executive and, in November, the company secured an emergency lifeline from Glencore, the commodities trading and mining giant, which was one of its shareholders.

But at the heart of its problems was that it had never signed firm supply deals with carmakers sufficient to guarantee future revenues of the kind that potential investors would have wanted to see.

All it had were preliminary agreements with two luxury carmakers, Aston Martin and Lotus, to design batteries for their EVs.

An artist's impression of how the factory was supposed to look on completion. Pic: Britishvolt
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The future for the Blyth site hangs in the balance

Last week, the company said it was in talks to sell a majority stake in itself to a consortium of investors in order to secure its future, but those came to nothing.

Today brought the news, which had seemed increasingly inevitable, of administration.

That need not be the end of the story.

Britishvolt’s main asset, the site at Cambois, is well-located close to a deep-water port and enjoys both good rail links and access to clean energy from Norway. It is highly likely to attract potential buyers.

India’s Tata Motors, the owner of Jaguar Land Rover, has been suggested as a possible buyer although it is hard to see why it would want to own a site in Blyth when a site in Coventry, much closer to the bulk of its manufacturing facilities elsewhere in the West Midlands, remains possible for development.

The bigger questions and concerns

Perhaps the bigger question – and concern – is how many car manufacturers will be in need of British-made EV batteries come the end of the decade.

Honda has already closed its plant at Swindon in Wiltshire while Stellantis, the Fiat, Peugeot and Citroen combine, is ending volume car production at Ellesmere Port in Cheshire and converting production there to electric vans and cars whose battery cells will be sourced on mainland Europe.

Mini’s owner, BMW, has confirmed the next generation of the model’s electric version will be built not at Cowley in Oxfordshire but in China. And it is not yet clear from where the luxury British carmakers Rolls-Royce and Bentley, respectively owned by BMW and Volkswagen, intend to source their batteries as they switch to EV production. Nor are Toyota’s intentions clear for its site at Burnaston in Derbyshire.

The biggest question of all concerns Jaguar Land Rover which, it seems, is likely to be relying on European production for at least some of the batteries powering its UK-built vehicles.

So perhaps the bigger worry is not the lack of gigafactories but whether they will actually be needed amid declining output from British-based volume car producers.

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Bank chiefs to Reeves: Ditch ring-fencing to boost UK economy

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Bank chiefs to Reeves: Ditch ring-fencing to boost UK economy

The bosses of four of Britain’s biggest banks are secretly urging the chancellor to ditch the most significant regulatory change imposed after the 2008 financial crisis, warning her its continued imposition is inhibiting UK economic growth.

Sky News has obtained an explosive letter sent this week by the chief executives of HSBC Holdings, Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest Group and Santander UK in which they argue that bank ring-fencing “is not only a drag on banks’ ability to support business and the economy, but is now redundant”.

The CEOs’ letter represents an unprecedented intervention by most of the UK’s major lenders to abolish a reform which cost them billions of pounds to implement and which was designed to make the banking system safer by separating groups’ high street retail operations from their riskier wholesale and investment banking activities.

Their request to Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, to abandon ring-fencing 15 years after it was conceived will be seen as a direct challenge to the government to take drastic action to support the economy during a period when it is forcing economic regulators to scrap red tape.

It will, however, ignite controversy among those who believe that ditching the UK’s most radical post-crisis reform risks exacerbating the consequences of any future banking industry meltdown.

In their letter to the chancellor, the quartet of bank chiefs told Ms Reeves that: “With global economic headwinds, it is crucial that, in support of its Industrial Strategy, the government’s Financial Services Growth and Competitiveness Strategy removes unnecessary constraints on the ability of UK banks to support businesses across the economy and sends the clearest possible signal to investors in the UK of your commitment to reform.

“While we welcomed the recent technical adjustments to the ring-fencing regime, we believe it is now imperative to go further.

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“Removing the ring-fencing regime is, we believe, among the most significant steps the government could take to ensure the prudential framework maximises the banking sector’s ability to support UK businesses and promote economic growth.”

Work on the letter is said to have been led by HSBC, whose new chief executive, Georges Elhedery, is among the signatories.

His counterparts at Lloyds, Charlie Nunn; NatWest’s Paul Thwaite; and Mike Regnier, who runs Santander UK, also signed it.

While Mr Thwaite in particular has been public in questioning the continued need for ring-fencing, the letter – sent on Tuesday – is the first time that such a collective argument has been put so forcefully.

The only notable absentee from the signatories is CS Venkatakrishnan, the Barclays chief executive, although he has publicly said in the past that ring-fencing is not a major financial headache for his bank.

Other industry executives have expressed scepticism about that stance given that ring-fencing’s origination was largely viewed as being an attempt to solve the conundrum posed by Barclays’ vast investment banking operations.

The introduction of ring-fencing forced UK-based lenders with a deposit base of at least £25bn to segregate their retail and investment banking arms, supposedly making them easier to manage in the event that one part of the business faced insolvency.

Banks spent billions of pounds designing and setting up their ring-fenced entities, with separate boards of directors appointed to each division.

More recently, the Treasury has moved to increase the deposit threshold from £25bn to £35bn, amid pressure from a number of faster-growing banks.

Sam Woods, the current chief executive of the main banking regulator, the Prudential Regulation Authority, was involved in formulating proposals published by the Sir John Vickers-led Independent Commission on Banking in 2011.

Legislation to establish ring-fencing was passed in the Financial Services Reform (Banking) Act 2013, and the regime came into effect in 2019.

In addition to ring-fencing, banks were forced to substantially increase the amount and quality of capital they held as a risk buffer, while they were also instructed to create so-called ‘living wills’ in the event that they ran into financial trouble.

The chancellor has repeatedly spoken of the need to regulate for growth rather than risk – a phrase the four banks hope will now persuade her to abandon ring-fencing.

Britain is the only major economy to have adopted such an approach to regulating its banking industry – a fact which the four bank chiefs say is now undermining UK competitiveness.

“Ring-fencing imposes significant and often overlooked costs on businesses, including SMEs, by exposing them to banking constraints not experienced by their international competitors, making it harder for them to scale and compete,” the letter said.

“Lending decisions and pricing are distorted as the considerable liquidity trapped inside the ring-fence can only be used for limited purposes.

“Corporate customers whose financial needs become more complex as they grow larger, more sophisticated, or engage in international trade, are adversely affected given the limits on services ring-fenced banks can provide.

“Removing ring-fencing would eliminate these cliff-edge effects and allow firms to obtain the full suite of products and services from a single bank, reducing administrative costs”.

In recent months, doubts have resurfaced about the commitment of Spanish banking giant Santander to its UK operations amid complaints about the costs of regulation and supervision.

The UK’s fifth-largest high street lender held tentative conversations about a sale to either Barclays or NatWest, although they did not progress to a formal stage.

HSBC, meanwhile, is particularly restless about the impact of ring-fencing on its business, given its sprawling international footprint.

“There has been a material decline in UK wholesale banking since ring-fencing was introduced, to the detriment of British businesses and the perception of the UK as an internationally orientated economy with a global financial centre,” the letter said.

“The regime causes capital inefficiencies and traps liquidity, preventing it from being deployed efficiently across Group entities.”

The four bosses called on Ms Reeves to use this summer’s Mansion House dinner – the City’s annual set-piece event – to deliver “a clear statement of intent…to abolish ring-fencing during this Parliament”.

Doing so, they argued, would “demonstrate the government’s determination to do what it takes to promote growth and send the strongest possible signal to investors of your commitment to the City and to strengthen the UK’s position as a leading international financial centre”.

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Post Office to unveil £1.75bn banking deal with big British lenders

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Post Office to unveil £1.75bn banking deal with big British lenders

The Post Office will next week unveil a £1.75bn deal with dozens of banks which will allow their customers to continue using Britain’s biggest retail network.

Sky News has learnt the next Post Office banking framework will be launched next Wednesday, with an agreement that will deliver an additional £500m to the government-owned company.

Banking industry sources said on Friday the deal would be worth roughly £350m annually to the Post Office – an uplift from the existing £250m-a-year deal, which expires at the end of the year.

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The sources added that in return for the additional payments, the Post Office would make a range of commitments to improving the service it provides to banks’ customers who use its branches.

Banks which participate in the arrangements include Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest Group and Santander UK.

Under the Banking Framework Agreement, the 30 banks and mutuals’ customers can access the Post Office’s 11,500 branches for a range of services, including depositing and withdrawing cash.

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The service is particularly valuable to those who still rely on physical cash after a decade in which well over 6,000 bank branches have been closed across Britain.

In 2023, more than £10bn worth of cash was withdrawn over the counter and £29bn in cash was deposited over the counter, the Post Office said last year.

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A new, longer-term deal with the banks comes at a critical time for the Post Office, which is trying to secure government funding to bolster the pay of thousands of sub-postmasters.

Reliant on an annual government subsidy, the reputation of the network’s previous management team was left in tatters by the Horizon IT scandal and the wrongful conviction of hundreds of sub-postmasters.

A Post Office spokesperson declined to comment ahead of next week’s announcement.

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Trump trade war: How UK figures show his tariff argument doesn’t add up

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Trump trade war: How UK figures show his tariff argument doesn't add up

As Chancellor Rachel Reeves meets her counterpart, US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent to discuss an “economic agreement” between the two countries, the latest trade figures confirm three realities that ought to shape negotiations.

The first is that the US remains a vital customer for UK businesses, the largest single-nation export market for British goods and the third-largest import partner, critical to the UK automotive industry, already landed with a 25% tariff, and pharmaceuticals, which might yet be.

In 2024 the US was the UK’s largest export market for cars, worth £9bn to companies including Jaguar Land Rover, Bentley and Aston Martin, and accounting for more than 27% of UK automotive exports.

Little wonder the domestic industry fears a heavy and immediate impact on sales and jobs should tariffs remain.

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Chancellor’s trade deal red lines explained

American car exports to the UK by contrast are worth just £1bn, which may explain why the chancellor may be willing to lower the current tariff of 10% to 2.5%.

For UK medicines and pharmaceutical producers meanwhile, the US was a more than £6bn market in 2024. Currently exempt from tariffs, while Mr Trump and his advisors think about how to treat an industry he has long-criticised for high prices, it remains vulnerable.

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The second point is that the US is even more important for the services industry. British exports of consultancy, PR, financial and other professional services to America were worth £131bn last year.

That’s more than double the total value of the goods traded in the same direction, but mercifully services are much harder to hammer with the blunt tool of tariffs, though not immune from regulation and other “non-tariff barriers”.

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How US ports are coping with tariffs

The third point is that, had Donald Trump stuck to his initial rationale for tariffs, UK exporters should not be facing a penny of extra cost for doing business with the US.

The president says he slapped blanket tariffs on every nation bar Russia to “rebalance” the US economy and reverse goods trade ‘deficits’ – in which the US imports more than it exports to a given country.

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That heavily contested argument might apply to Mexico, Canada, China and many other manufacturing nations, but it does not meaningfully apply to Britain.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show the US ran a small goods trade deficit with the UK in 2024 of £2.2bn, importing £59.3bn of goods against exports of £57.1bn.

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IMF downgrades UK growth forecast

Add in services trade, in which the UK exports more than double what it imports from the US, and the UK’s surplus – and thus the US ‘deficit’ – swells to nearly £78bn.

That might be a problem were it not for the US’ own accounts of the goods and services trade with Britain, which it says actually show a $15bn (£11.8bn) surplus with the UK.

You might think that they cannot both be right, but the ONS disagrees. The disparity is caused by the way the US Bureau of Economic Analysis accounts for services, as well as a range of statistical assumptions.

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“The presence of trade asymmetries does not indicate that either country is inaccurate in their estimation,” the ONS said.

That might be encouraging had Mr Trump not ignored his own arguments and landed the UK, like everyone else in the world, with a blanket 10% tariff on all goods.

Trade agreements are notoriously complex, protracted affairs, which helps explain why after nine years of trying the UK still has not got one with the US, and the Brexit deal it did with the EU against a self-imposed deadline has been proved highly disadvantageous.

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