Rover bosses slam police for driving foreign cars

Political correctness is stopping one authority from buying British, writes Tim Webb

Bosses at MG Rover, the last surviving independent car manufacturer in the UK, have attacked British police forces for refusing to buy Rover patrol cars.

Peter Beale, vice-chairman of Phoenix Venture Holdings, the owner of the loss-making company, said that MG Rover would have broken even last year if police and other public-sector organisations had followed a "buy British" policy. Last week, MG Rover reported £77m losses for 2003. Mr Beale said that losses for 2004 would be higher than last year, although the company is implementing a cost-saving programme, which should see it break even in 2005.

One police authority, when asked why it did not buy Rover cars, explained that buying "anything British, including British cars, was an overtly nationalist statement and could be considered offensive by vulnerable, deprived and ethnic minority groups in our society".

In France, Italy and Germany, the authorities make sure that most of the police cars they buy are manufactured in their home countries. In the UK, police forces buy most of their cars from overseas, even though Rover and Jaguar cars are made at home.

Mr Beale said: "If we had the extra sales from police forces and other public sectors, it would have made the difference between losing money and breaking even."

While European competitors are bound by the same EU competition rules on open tendering, he said that in practice selling cars to public sector institutions in countries like France was not possible.

"We are not looking for handouts," Mr Beale continued. "We are a business. But we want the same rules to apply in Europe as at home. All we are asking for is a level playing field with competitors in Europe."

He said that only two police authorities in the UK were supportive of MG Rover, buying several dozen Rover cars since Phoenix bought the company from parent BMW for £10 in 2000.

One of the worst offenders, he said, is West Midlands Police. This is despite the fact that its jurisdiction covers MG Rover's plant at Longbridge as well as the Solihull Land Rover plant and Jaguar's plant at Coventry, which are both owned by Ford.

Mr Beale said West Midlands Police had bought only one Rover car in three years, yet officers regularly rang up to ask if cars could be supplied for free trials. They had returned the compact Rover Streetwise car they had been trialling, explaining it was "too fast", he said.

A spokeswoman from West Midlands Police said: "We are currently in negotiations with Rover and are testing its latest model. But police cars have to go through rigorous testing."

Mr Beale admitted that MG Rover's performance has been affected by talk of joint ventures in Eastern Europe and China to launch a new range of Rover models. "We have got distracted in the last few months. Because of the joint venture talks, people have got excited about the new models. We have taken our eye off the ball."

Separately, on Tuesday, unions will attack Ford's management of its Jaguar plants in the Midlands. Union representatives will appear before a committee of MPs investigating the proposed closure of Jaguar's Coventry plant, which was announced last month.

Dave Osborne, national officer at transport union TGWU, said: "The company has made fundamental mistakes." He said unions were working on plans to present to Jaguar's management next month to prevent the closure, which would result in over 1,000 job losses. If Jaguar pressed ahead with the closure for next summer, he did not rule out strike action.