Should our new passports be printed in Britain, whatever the cost?

WHAT is the price of national pride? Apparently, it is £12 million a year: that’s the difference between the only British bid by De La Rue in Gateshead, which produces passports for 40 countries, and the Franco-Dutch company that has been granted the contract to supply Britain’s new blue passports in 2019. Laughably, the idea of changing the colour from burgundy was to signify Britain taking back control, so this disgraceful decision needs to be reviewed urgently. It is not only Brexiteers who will be furious — Remainers should be angry as well. This Government is yet again failing to put this country and its workers first and is selling off part of our national identity.

GORDON KENNEDy, Perth. THERE was no need for the production of the new UK passport to be put out to tender across the EU. France only allows French firms to produce its passports on grounds of national security. So why don’t we? GEOFFREy KING,

Hawkhurst, Kent.

MILLIONS of people voted Leave to get our old blue passports back? Well, I’m sorry to disillusion them, but it was our government that changed them to burgundy, and now it is our Government having the new ones printed by a French-Dutch firm. Other countries cite a national security to dodge EU

tendering rules. Everything people rage about — the huge EU bureaucracy (tiny compared with Whitehall), the waste (ditto), unelected officials (House of Lords), mass immigration (from the Commonwealth, not the EU), human rights rules (the European Convention on Human Rights is nothing to do with the EU) — is the fault of our Government, not the EU.

SIMON CAMPBELL, Glasgow.

IS IT any wonder we can’t get a good deal on Brexit? Only in this country are the powers-that-be stupid enough to award manufacture of a new passport to a foreign company when a British firm could do the work. It reminds me of the old joke that in the EU, the Germans make the rules, the French ignore them and the British employ another 500 civil servants to ensure they are implemented. ROBERT BISHOP, Billingshurst, W. Sussex.

WE WANT British firms such as De La Rue to be able to get business from Europe, but don’t like it if European firms get business from us.

J. TRINDER, Oxford.

AWARDING a contract to produce our passports to a non-British company is stupidity, EU regulations or not. Why don’t we just wait until after Brexit to award this contract? P. WILSON, Chester.

IGNORE the rules and give the passport contract to a British firm. What can the EU do — throw us out?

JOHN LONGFORD, Cambridge.

MUCH is being made about the £12 million extra annual cost if the passport contract had been awarded to De La Rue. Simple calculations for corporation tax, national insurance and PAYE based on the contract value of £490 million would indicate a sum far in excess of this £12 million ‘saving’. If we contract to keep this work in the UK, there would be no redundancies, resulting in further financial savings. Money earned in the UK is generally spent here and the Government also benefits from the VAT.

JOHN HARPER, Wokingham, Berks.

THE proposed passport colour is French Navy blue as opposed to the Royal Navy blue of the original. Is this another insult from the Europhile establishment?

STEVE LAMB, Atherstone, Warks.

CAN we have a rational, rather than an emotional, debate about the manufacture of these passports? As members of the EU, we are obliged to ensure contracts of a certain type and value are advertised for firms throughout the EU to compete for. The conditions for determining the best tender are a function of price and other pertinent factors, and are set out in advance as part of the process. This is an essential part of the terms of the single market, and so even if we leave the EU, but remain in the single market, as has been mooted, we would have the same problem.

K. SHARMAN, Southend-on-Sea, Essex.