With no immediate prospect of new train orders, train maker Bombardier has begun a 90 day consultation with staff at its Derby plant regarding plans to reduce the 3,000 workforce by over 1,400.
Transport secretary Philip Hammond defended the decision to award the Thameslink contract to Siemens, insisting that his hands were tied by the tender specification set by the previous government.
He said the only options available to him were to either cancel the procurement process or to award the contract to the best value deal within the framework.
Mr Hammond said that if he had chosen to ‘simply ignore’ the terms of the procurement laid out by the previous government then awarded the contract to an under bidder, ‘we would face legal action from the successful bidder and under the terms of the EU remedy directive we would very likely be prevented by legal intervention from signing a contract anyway.’
Brushing off claims that the job losses were linked to Bombardier not winning the Thameslink contract he quoted from a letter sent to him from Bombardier:
‘Even if the Thameslink contract is awarded to us in the immediate future, the successful delivery of existing projects mean it is already inevitable that Bombardier will experience a dip in workload, the scale of which will mean the lay off of around 1,200 employees.’
On a more positive note Mr Hammond offered some hope for Bombardier by hinting that the government may bring forward train orders to help Bombardier, saying :
“Bombardier is already a shortlisted bidder for the Crossrail contract, it has won contracts with London Underground and will be extremely well placed for the next big London Underground contract coming up and we are looking at the procurement requirements of other train operators in the UK to see if there’s anything we can do to bring forward any of those requirements to support the supply chain.”
A further announcement regarding the Derby site is expected within the next two months.
when will people learn that neither company is a UK company, they are German and Canadian but both have a UK base, the difference is Bomnardier has been here longer. Also if Siemens are going to hire around 2000 new people where as bombarider would have had to lay off 1200 anyway aren’t we creating jobs not loosing them
The DMU fleet of Northern Rail is over 20 years-old and desperately needs replacing and the same goes for East Midlands Trains. It is interesting to read Hammond’s comment that the DfT are looking at the procurement requirements of other TOCs, to see if they might be brought forward. Hopefully, new trains for these two operators will be given top priority and in this regard, Bombardier should get the opportunity to offer the latest version of the Turbostar or, perhaps, some new product! Furthermore, whilst Northern is due to receive (at least at some date in the future!!!) Class 319s for the “Lancashire Triangle” electrification, these units are now 25 years-old and therefore, brand-new EMUs must be considered for the future as well as DMUs.Â