Letter: Saving Britain

EU public procurement rules require all public sector contracts issued by local authorities, central government and utilities of 100,000 or more for services and supplies, or 4 million or more for works, to be advertised throughout Europe. The Thameslink train upgrade tenders falls under these rules and Siemens won because it offered a cheaper contract.

However, that is not quite the whole story. True competitive open EU tendering process has a lot of loopholes and according to the Woods Report for the UK government published a few years ago, there is a lot of favouritism on the continent to ensure domestic producers get picked in a way that the rules could be circumvented without seeming to be so.

Other EU countries like to back their own companies in public procurement decisions.

The Woods Report mentions numerous examples, designed to exclude foreign companies from having a realistic chance of winning public procurement contracts in countries like Spain, Germany and, above all, France. Tenders are written precisely so that only a domestic contractor can fulfil it, and are often sliced up into parts so that each slice falls below the minimum required for compulsory international tendering.

And when all else fails, there is a loophole paragraph that states the final choice does not have to be on most competitive price alone, but on best value, an amorphous concept which allows domestic bidders to be favoured on aesthetic, environmental or social factors.

On top of all this, some countries give two to three times more state aid to their firms than the UK does, obviously distorting competition.

With a little imagination, saving the British workers could come under the social consideration loophole that would allow the government to support British manufacturing without contravening EU law.

Alex Orr

Leamington Terrace

Edinburgh