PASSPORTS: THE GLOVES ARE OFF!
As 266,000 sign our petition, UK firm that lost blue passport contract slaps down French rival – and IS set to appeal
THE British firm that wants to make blue passports after Brexit came out fighting last night.
De La Rue, which makes the current burgundy UK passports, suggested the preferred foreign bidder’s offer for the £490million contract was deliberately below cost price.
In its strongest statement of intent yet, the British firm, where 200 jobs are at risk over the decision, confirmed it was prepared to take the Home Office to court.
Since Franco-Dutch firm Gemalto – which is partly owned by the French government – was revealed as ministers’ choice 12 days ago, more than 266,000 have signed the Daily Mail’s petition demanding a U-turn.
It comes after the Home Office extended the deadline for lodging an appeal – originally set for today – by at least two weeks.
Ministers claim the move will save up to £120million over 12 years. However, it is thought De La Rue, which makes 8million UK passports a year at its Gateshead factory, could argue the foreign deal should be overturned.
The 200- year- old company says that Gemalto may have wildly played down the true cost of producing passports reliably, securely and to a high standard in order to
win the contract. Last night De La Rue said: ‘We confirm that we are taking the first steps towards initiating appeal proceedings against the provisional decision to award the British passport contract to a part stateowned, Franco- Dutch company. Based on our knowledge of the market, it’s our view that ours was the highest quality and technically most secure bid.
‘We can accept that we weren’t the cheapest, even if our tender represented a significant discount on the current price.
‘It has also been suggested that the winning bid was well below our cost price, which causes us to question how sustainable it is. In the light of this, we are confident that we remain the best and securest option in the national interest.’
It is understood the Home Office gave a 60-40 weighting to quality and price respectively, and De La Rue believes Gemalto drastically underbid because it knew it could not match the British firm on quality. Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen said the Government should be wary of a bid from Gemalto as the French government
‘Serious questions to ask’
is one of the firm’s largest shareholders.
He said: ‘I think we have to be very suspicious of any bids part- owned by foreign governments who are never going to let them go bankrupt and will support their unsustainable tenders, of which the French have a history.
‘In comparison De La Rue has a track record of delivering a quality service for British passports and given they are offering cost savings on the current contract, it’s very difficult to see how someone could know better than De La Rue what the actual costs of producing British passports is.
‘There are serious questions to ask around Gemalto’s bid and its viability, and there will be improvements in security and extra technological advances to passports over the next 12 years and I think that’s best handled by the UK-based company.
‘As technology moves forward that’s going to be a key issue and it’s about the whole life cost of the contract.
‘It seems taking legal action is going to be the only way to establish [ the nature of Gemalto’s bid]. De La Rue are world leaders and why would we believe a foreign company, just because they’re cheaper, that they can actually deliver that without a French government subsidy?’
Last July, Gemalto, which would start producing UK passports from October next year, issued a fourth profit warning in nine months before the value of its shares tumbled. As it continued to struggle, French aerospace and defence group Thales made an offer to buy the company. Tory peer Lord Naseby said: ‘At the end of the day nothing is more important now than to ensure we have, as a nation, a successful launch into Brexit in just under a year. Here we have one of our iconic personal possessions, our passport. Everyone wants it in blue and people want to know the data is absolutely secure.
‘They do not want it printed in some state-owned factory in France, they want it printed in UK. I urge the Prime Minister to overrule the Home Office… and launch the finished article with as much razzle-dazzle as we can muster.’ The Mail’s offices have been swamped with thousands of letters supporting our campaign, which was praised in the Commons last week.
More than 266,000 people have signed the petition either online or by post, along with letters of support.
MPs are hoping for a parliamentary debate on the issue, while they have urged the Home Office to provide more information after the Easter recess. De La Rue is
‘Want it printed in the UK’
the world’s leading security and anti- counterfeiting provider for banknotes and personal identity.
The firm prints about 15million passport books a year when those of other countries are included.
The Home Office says the new process with Gemalto would be secure and passport personalisation pages would still be done in the UK.
Yesterday it announced it would be extending the ‘standstill’ period in which bidders can launch a legal challenge. France, Italy, Spain, Germany and the US all make their own passports.
WHILE the DPP wastes a fortune pursuing the innocent, the senior police chief in charge of investigating fraud throws up his hands in surrender over the country’s fastest growing crime wave.
Says City of London police commissioner Ian Dyson: ‘You are more likely to have money taken from you online than you are in the street.’ Yet he goes on to admit: ‘We cannot arrest our way out of this problem. It’s global and it’s big scale and it’s unreasonable to expect that.’
Indeed, the alarming figures say it all. More than 735,098 frauds and cyber crimes were reported across the UK in the year to March 2017 – with 99 per cent of offenders escaping justice.
Yes, online crime presents massive challenges. But defeatism betrays us all. Police, web giants, the security and financial industries must join a worldwide effort to stamp out this menace. Until then, our only defence is to remain on utmost guard. IN a victory against fake news, a Labourbacking doctor and council leader have been forced to apologise over claims, first aired on TV, that child poverty has caused 31 cases of rickets in Morecambe. In fact, official figures show only seven recent cases in all Lancashire – none caused by poverty and none in Morecambe. Is it too much to hope broadcasters will be less gullible in accepting the Left’s shroud-waving attacks on ‘austerity’? COMING out fighting over the blue passports row, British bidder De La Rue accuses its European rival of banking on French government subsidies to eke out its unsustainably low offer. Indeed, there is still hope the Home Office will heed the Mail’s petition, put security and patriotism first – and award the printing contract to Britain. Keep those signatures coming.