Whenever you board a train in Britain it is highly likely it was built or refurbished by Alstom. From the Pendolinos on the West Coast mainline, to the carriages on the new Elizabeth line in London, to the pods that take you between the terminals at Heathrow airport, they were all made by Alstom in Britain.

Alstom’s famous Litchurch Lane site is the nation’s premier train factory, the largest, the longest established, and the only train factory in Britain able to design, build and test trains for domestic and export markets. It employs 3,000 people, as well as supporting several thousand more off-site suppliers, and includes the UK’s only train design centre which is currently designing trains for projects on four continents. There can be no doubt that Derby Litchurch Lane is a strategic, national and regional asset.

However, I visited the factory this month because it faces a significant problem. Because of changes to Government policy, Alstom’s Derby factory now faces a two-year production gap before works begins on the rolling stock for HS2. Despite promises to create a consistent work programme, this has not been forthcoming, and the workforce now face significant redundancies.

I find this unfathomable. Alstom does not need financial assistance from Government, nor a circumvention of any competitive procurement process. It just needs stability and consistent policy. Given the state of the rolling stock across the UK’s railways, and the need to improve this both for quality and to meet demand, I cannot believe it is not possible to ensure we have consistent work available. In the UK, despite the operators of the railways being privatised, the Government still controls the major decisions on new rolling stock. This is one reason why Labour’s plans to return the railways to public ownership are not particularly controversial.

There are a number of decisions imminent on contracts for refurbishing existing trains, or ordering new ones, that could ensure the future of the Alstom site fairly easily. The Government have been in talks with Alstom for many months but without result. If we were to lose Alstom, we would become the only G7 country without the ability to design and manufacture new trains.

This is why the UK needs an industrial strategy, but it is also why it needs a Government focused on the things that matter. The next General Election cannot come soon enough.