---

Manufacturing and Employment

May I say congratulations and well done? The Minister needs a preservation order on him! He must be listed! He is fairly unique in the House. At least there is a conscience at work. The fact is that most of the Minister's colleagues—I hope that he will spread the word—use the Toyota Prius. There is nothing wrong with the Prius, except that it does not involve British jobs or components, and it is shipped all the way here, so it has a bigger carbon footprint than the Minister's car, which comes from down the road. I am not anti-Toyota, which has a plant in the UK—far from it—but I say this to Ministers: they should ride round in a British-built Aventis. Otherwise, let us have the big conversation and ask Toyota, "Why aren't you building hybrid cars in the UK?" Manufacturing in the UK is very important to us. Australia, with 16 million people, can say, "Build here and we'll buy your vehicles; don't build here and we won't." We should be following that example. There are 60 million people in this country and we are one of the biggest car-owning countries in the world. We should lean on Toyota—and Honda—and say, "Do the right thing and build those cars here."