Nissan assured UK to seek tariff-free Brexit deal

Bloomberg

UK Business Secretary Greg Clark wrote to Nissan Motor Co. setting out four key assurances, including a pledge to seek tariff-free access to the European Union market in a post-Brexit deal, to persuade the company to make a new investment at a plant in northeast England.
“What I said is that our objective would be to ensure that we have continued access to the markets in Europe and vice versa without tariffs and without bureaucratic impediments, and that is how we will approach those negotiations,” Clark told BBC Television’s “Andrew Marr Show” on Sunday. “My determination was to go all-out to provide the confidence that a long-term investor needs that Britain will be the go-to place for manufacturing cars.”
Clark said his letter also contained promises to continue supporting training and innovation in the car industry; to carry on regenerating sites to help bring suppliers back to the U.K.; to being at the leading edge of research and development; and, alongside tariff-free trade, to pursue a strategy to keep U.K. industry competitive. There’s no extra public money involved, he said.
“They were the assurances that gave confidence and allowed these jobs to be safeguarded and enhanced,” Clark said. “A lot of things apply to the industry generally.”
The Japanese automaker announced it would start making the X-Trail sport utility vehicle and the next-generation Qashqai at the Sunderland car plant, the U.K.’s largest, only a month after warning that possible post-Brexit tariffs could damage investment. The sudden shift drew questions about what assistance the government might have promised to keep Nissan in Britain.
Nissan told the government it might shut down manufacturing in the country after Brexit, according to a person familiar with the private discussions. The Sunderland site employs more than 7,000 people and supports another 28,000 supplier jobs.
In terms of Brexit, “it’s simply not possible to compensate for future risks, so the intention of the government in keeping the sector competitive is important,” Clark said. The business secretary wouldn’t be drawn on whether the government’s plans involve remaining in the EU’s customs union. He said that ministers are trying to “look right across the board” to find a deal for the entire range of U.K. industry.
The main opposition Labour Party’s Brexit spokesman, Keir Starmer, called on Clark to publish his letter to Nissan in full, saying it contains important details of the government’s Brexit strategy.
“The sooner we see that letter, the better,” Starmer told ITV’s “Peston on Sunday” program. “Nissan’s been told more about it than we have in Parliament, so the government’s got to come clean, I think, this week and put the terms before Parliament.”