Securing our sector’s seat at the table

Toby Poston comments: Party conferences are strange places. Thousands of people, hundreds of events and meetings, and an awful lot of ground covered on foot.

With a relatively new Prime Minister, a changing ministerial team and some significant policy decisions approaching, this week’s Labour Party Conference in Liverpool has been a valuable opportunity to make sure BVRLA members are part of the conversation.

Our message has been a straightforward one. If the Government wants growth, investment and a successful UK automotive industry, our sector has a major role to play.

BVRLA members buy more than half of all new vehicles sold in the UK. They are putting electric vehicles into the hands of businesses and drivers at scale, supporting UK manufacturing and providing affordable access to cars, vans and trucks for millions of people.

That gives us a strong story to tell. More importantly, it gives us a responsibility to explain what members need from policymakers if they are going to keep doing it.

Over three busy days - plus a presence at the conferences of the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Reform - our policy and public affairs team and I have been doing exactly that.

We have spoken to ministers, MPs, journalists and other industry representatives about everything from the transition to electric vehicles and support for UK automotive manufacturing to the cost of doing business.

Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds was particularly interested in the contribution BVRLA members make to UK automotive and the Government’s DRIVE35 ambitions. That programme is becoming an increasingly significant part of the Government’s approach to supporting zero-emission vehicle manufacturing and its supply chain.

Addressing the conference, the Prime Minister’s comments on the cost of doing business were also welcome. Businesses need competitive energy costs, quicker grid connections and greater clarity from government. These aren’t abstract policy discussions for our members. They affect investment decisions, depot electrification, vehicle costs and ultimately what can be offered to customers.

Then there are the issues where we need to keep pushing.

In conversations with Treasury ministers, I raised eVED, Benefit-in-Kind and the financing of electric trucks. We also discussed the uncertainty surrounding motor finance and the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act.

These are very different subjects, but there is a common thread. Good policy needs to work in the real world.

The same applies to the bigger questions facing UK automotive. Government is currently reviewing the ZEV Mandate against a backdrop of global competition, trade uncertainty and the need to attract investment into the UK. BVRLA members sit right in the middle of that equation – buying vehicles in huge numbers while managing the practical realities of getting businesses and consumers into them.

Party conferences provide standalone moments to further discussions and form a key part of the broader political system. Not every conversation produces an immediate announcement or policy change. Nor should it. Effective influencing is often about making the same evidence-led case, consistently, to the right people over time.

Members tell us what they are seeing. We take that experience into Westminster, Whitehall and places like party conference. Then we keep pushing.

There are plenty more conversations to have. Our job is to make sure the fleet and mobility services sector is in the room for them.