Government: Cars

Lord Davies of Oldham Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the reason for that was in one of the very first answers I gave—that the motor industry supply chain is very much international. Another point to remember about government procurement is that we are bound by the European procurement rules, which restrict our course of action. However, we are 50:50 British and foreign in the fleet.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, an undoubtedly British car is the London taxi, which is symbolic of everything London stands for in terms of transport. The company Manganese Bronze is in very serious trouble, to the extent that 400 taxis have been withdrawn because of steering difficulties and the firm is not able to manufacture any others. This is extremely serious as far as the London taxi service is concerned, which is of course valued by very large numbers of people. Has the department begun thinking about the answers to those problems?