How Rudd sealed deal
Could not favour a British firm
AMBER Rudd signed off on the deal to let a foreign firm make Britain’s new blue passports without knowing who had won the contract, it was claimed last night.
The Home Secretary rubber-stamped the decision which, according to her department, would have assessed the bidders anonymously.
This gave the green light to Gemalto – a European firm listed on the French and Dutch stock exchanges – to win the £490million contract over UK company De La Rue.
The Home Secretary, who fought for Remain during the referendum, would not have been given the names of the companies when she was asked to approve the decision. Instead they would have been presented as bidders 1, 2 and 3.
Gemalto won the race to make the post-- Brexit passports with a bid that was £120million less than De La Rue – saving taxpayers just £ 12million a year over a decade.
The final decision sparked a huge backlash yesterday – and triggered gloating from the Dutch prime minister.
The Home Office announced last year that it was tendering for firms to make the travel documents from 2019. They will be blue and gold, instead of the EU’s burgundy.
Under EU rules, the Government could not favour a domestic firm – although other countries have cited security concerns to circumvent this.
The UK process was a ‘blind tender’, so ministers did not know which firm submitted each bid. Initially, the Home Office put the contract out to tender with detailed specifications. Bids came in from three companies – Gemalto, De La Rue and French firm Oberthur Technologies.
A board of Home Office bureaucrats and independent experts then weighed up the proposals for areas including product design, security, production and supply chains.
During this phase, the quality of the passport was prioritised over cost when examining the bids at a weighting of 60 per cent to 40 per cent.
This ensured the integrity of the passport was placed ahead of value for money, which helped to prevent security being undermined. Following an assessment lasting several months, a numerical rating was attached to each area of the firms’ bids.
These scores were combined to give an overall total, allowing the companies’ to be ranked in order.
The winning bid was then recommended to immigration minister Caroline Nokes and then to Miss Rudd to rubber-stamp.
Because of the rules of the blind tender, they could only sign off the bid assessed to be the best. This was then passed to Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss so she could approve the use of taxpayers’ money on the deal.
The Dutch prime minister yesterday wasted no time in bragging about how one of his country’s firms had snatched the contract.
As he arrived in Brussels for an EU summit, Mark Rutte told reporters he was pleased that Gemalto had won the job. He said he was ‘very proud’ the company had been picked.