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De La Rue calls on government to reverse blue passport decision
De La Rue's chief executive has called on the government to reverse its decision to award the contract for making post-Brexit blue passports to a Franco-Dutch company.
Martin Sutherland said the decision was "disappointing and surprising" and bad for the economy. He invited Prime Minister Theresa May and Home Secretary Amber Rudd to visit his factory and justify the decision to De La Rue workers who have made UK passports for the past 10 years.
Reports overnight said the government had awarded the £490m contract to Gemalto, whose shares are listed in Paris and Amsterdam. Sutherland told the BBC's Today programme that the government had confirmed the reports.
Sutherland said: "I find that a disappointing and surprising decision. We have heard over the last few weeks and months ministers happy to come on the media and talk about the new blue passport and the fact this is an icon of British identity and now this British icon is going to be made in France."
De La Rue's shares, already depressed by a profit warning, fell 5.3% to 477.5p at 08:23 GMT.
The decision is likely to cause a political storm after the prime minister said in December that replacing the burgundy EU passport with a blue one similar to older UK designs was an "expression of our independence and sovereignty". Pro-Brexit former cabinet minister Priti Patel told the Sun the decision to award the contract to Gemalto was a "national humiliation".
Reports said the tender process was organised so that civil servants did not know which company was bidding and awarded the contract on price alone. Sutherland said De La Rue was not allowed to bid to manufacture French passports.
Sutherland said De La Rue had produced UK passports from its factory in Gateshead, North East England, for the past 10 years "without a hiccup". Losing the passport contract from 2019 would be a blow to the factory, he said.
"We have a skilled and proud workforce in Gateshead. I'm going to have to face those workers ... and try to explain to them why the British government thinks it's a sensible decision to buy French passports, not British passports," he said. "I would like Theresa May and Amber Rudd to come to my factory and explain to my dedicated workers why they think it's a sensible decision to offshore the manufacture of a British icon."
Sutherland said De La Rue would appeal against the decision. "It doesn't feel sensible for the British tax payer. Is this a good decision for the British economy? In the post-Brexit world (the government) should be helping us to ply our trade around the world and this decision doesn't do that."
The government's decision emerged a day after De La Rue said profit for the year would be at the low end of analyst forecasts. In a statement about the passport decision De La Rue said losing the contract would not affect financial performance in the current financial year or the following one.
When May announced the return of blue passports, critics pointed out that several EU countries had blue passports already.