Labour calls for review of trains contract awarded to Siemens

19/12/2012 Sim Harris Rail News interview 

the contract is running years late the prototype trains should be running now 

Siemens is having to run private sector money - a big ask for a company for in the eurozone - price of money is going up siemens has a better credit rating than Bombardier so it seems unlikely they will be able to do any better. The Government should have known they would of been criticised about this, their offer the price of the private sector contribution was lower - could raise money on the private market at a better rate because of their credit rating £500m pounds cheaper when the price of money is taken into consideration- can see why the Government has offered it to them 'we are the good boys of Europe' we follow these rules whilst other countries like France and Germany don't.  

_________________________________________________Summary

• awarding the Thameslink trains deal to Siemens rather than Bombardier in Derby, body blow to British manufacturing
• decision could cost up to 20,000 jobs, including 6000 people employed by Bombardier
• future train contracts for Crossrail and hs2 projects, likely to be tilted in favour of the company producing 12000 Thameslink carriages
• EU rules require equal, transparent and non-discrimintaory treatment of bidders for government controls.
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 report
 Four months ago David Cameron brought his "march of the makers" to Derby in a morale-boosting exercise for Britain's blue-collar sector. Now more than 1,400 manufacturing jobs have walked out of the city as Bombardier, the last remaining train maker in the UK, announced plans to cut nearly half its workforce in the wake of the government's decision last month to select Siemens of Germany for a £3bn contract.
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facts

• A decision to select Germany's Siemens for a £1.4bn train contract, rather than Bombardier in the UK, will not be reviewed or put out to tender again, the transport secretary has said.
  Philip Hammond told a committee of MPs that 1,400 redundancies at the firm's Derby factory were "regrettable". continue
   

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