To expect that our new passports will be printed in the UK

I wouldn't be at all surprised if, when the foreign company 'discovers' some way down the line that its tender was unrealistic, our government has to pick up the pieces at taxpayers' expense.

a lot of the Gateshead company's business is making banknotes for other countries - do you think they shouldn't do that?
www.theguardian.com/business/2018/mar/22/de-la-rue-the-british-money-maker-that-lost-uk-passport-contract
"the Home Office said the decision to pick a preferred bidder in the tender would save taxpayers about £120m over the five years of the contract."
would you prefer to pay more in taxation or remove more funds from the nhs, social services, transport etc?
www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/mar/22/contract-to-print-uk-passports-abroad-will-save-120m

Yes, holdingontometeeth, that is a problem caused by this and previous governments in this country, they do not have a clue who is in the country. Is that not absolutely deplorable! But of course, this thread is about who will print the new passports for the UK, and without any doubt in my mind, I think they should be printed in the UK. The potential for illegal acquisition of UK passports, if printed outside the UK, would be much easier, and therefore the security reasons used by other governments as to why their passports should be printed in the home country, are indeed valid. Why I wonder do the British government think this is a risk worth taking. We already have more than enough foreign criminals in the country, in particular, in our prisons.
As to the colour. I really don't care.

I watched Martin Sutherland, CEO, from the British firm, De la Rue being interviewed on BBC Breakfast time yesterday 22/3/18.
He said they were a very successful company and jobs were not in jeopardy over the loss of this passport contract.
He had been assured by those dishing out the contract that it was awarded elsewhere.
A short time later a ( yet another ) mealy mouthed politician was interviewed on the subject. He insisted that there was another layer in the decision making process to be explored and that the award had not been finalised.
Perhaps that layer is changing their mind due to the furore being stoked up.
For me, I don't care who gets the contract, though I would like an explanation from De La Rue how they can find it to be acceptable to put in a bid which is reported to be anything between £50,000,000 and £120,000,000 higher than their competitors.
France and Germany do not allow foreign companies to print their passports citing security issues.
As the establishment haven't got a clue as to who is already in this country I can understand the British government giving this condition a miss.

My understanding is that the deal has not been finally sealed yet. Is that innaccurate, please?

If you went to some parts of the UK you wouldn’t see many non white faces either. What’s that got to do with anything?

Smoking bans and much health and safety legislation determined by individual countries not the EU. Just shows how brainwashed we are that the EU made all our laws.

I have just returned from a week in Toulouse and it made me realise how we in Britain obey the 'rules' and the French don't. For example, smoking is carried on as it always was, and there were no safety barriers round an open manhole on the pavement - just 2 examples of ignoring 'health and safety' and 'risk assessment'. I also saw very few faces that weren't white. So why should we follow procurement rules when the French just do their own thing?

Seems our government doesn’t want the state to own railways, utilities etc, but it’s quite happy for foreign companies owned by foreign states to own them. Bit ironic that?

Im not sure its got anything to do with EU rules and tendering. it's to do with market forces and giving tenders to the organisation that gives the cheapest price. I'm not a fan of this approach to business, especially as it relates to public services.
I'm finding it hard not to chuckle that Leavers are outraged our new passports are to be made in France. Well in fact, I've stopped trying not to chuckle.

As someone else said.......if we were not leaving the EU we wouldn't need new passports at all. But it does seem crazy to get something so important and connected with security to be printed outside our own country. If the government is compelled to do this under EU rules about tendering, then maybe they will change it if and when (sadly in my mind) we actually leave. But it doesn't look good to British voters right now!

Have they budgeted in the savings the cost of 600 people being made redundant plus the stress and unhappiness of loosing their jobs.

This is just the kind of thing that probably fuelled the “leave” vote .

I really don’t trust such a massive price difference ? It seems fishy to me . Are French/Dutch employment costs so much less than ours ? I doubt it . Or is it (as I think it is) and they either can’t really do it for that money or they are being financed by their government .

It was a closed bidding process and is for a contract of several years. The printing only relates to the blank document and contains no personal data - this will be entered in the UK. What's so special about having it printed in the UK anyway? - it is only a glorified pass book.

Thank you for the information durhamjen, but you are patronising in the extreme to other posters. YES, people care a lot about the utilities and the train companies being owned or contracts given to other countries. It’s maddening to see the profits hived off to other countries, but there’s nothing they can do about it, any more than they can anything about the passports issue. I for one resent spiralling costs with poor service on the trains when services are apparently much better and cheaper in the service provider countries. What would you suggest I do about it? Indeed what do you suggest I (or others) do about the passport issue?
This thread is about passports and the possible awarding of the contract to a French company who have put in a (probably deliberately) undercut bid.

Nothing that can be done here should be done abroad.

Making hay while the sun shines ?

A thread about passports and already I notice certain posters becoming patronising and rude about other posters with whom they don’t agree. I’m fed up with it as I’m sure many others are. I’m fairly sure that’s why we are seeing less ‘political/news’ threads on the daily email. You actually have to look for them now in the political forum.
Anyway, I don’t care what colour my passport will be, although I only renewed mine last year, so I’ve definitely got the red one for quite a while yet. However I would prefer the passport contract to go to Britain, because there is the distinct probability of job losses otherwise, and because apparently France won’t allow their passports to be printed anywhere except France, so why on earth would we not behave in exactly the same way. France always looks looks after number one, perhaps it’s time the U.K. did the same.

I'm not saying there aren't issues with private companies running things like the railways, but the Virgin train teams and the managers seem to work hard to me, there's esprit de corps in the organisation and just dashing their efforts doesn't seem fair.

I had a Victor Meldrew moment yesterday whist listening to the radio when I heard this.....! Surely this cannot be allowed to happen.

Durhamjen: IMHO the East Coast Mainline was not better when it was run by other operators, at least not for the last 15 years during the time I have been a regular user. The carriages are cleaner, the loos are cleaner (not saying much though), some of them very comfortably refurbished, food arrangements are better, and it seems to be on time. The worst was when Stagecoach/National Express had it. When they defaulted and it was run by the public sector for a while, it was OK, but Virgin have definitely made improvements on that.

The East Coast Mainline was better when it wasn't run by Branson as well. Do you think it's okay that your fares are so high because Branson takes a cut and doesn't pay taxes?
I haven't said everything should be public sector, have I? That would be silly. But there are some things which are natural monopolies, like power, water and rail which should be run by local authorities or the government.

weownit.org.uk/why-public-ownership

What I am saying is you can't have it both ways. You can't say it's okay to have private companies run certain businesses then complain when a private company wins the contract.
Printing of the passports is just a small part of it. The personal part of it is still being done by the government.

Meant to add. Council tax one of the highest in the country ! Council leaders some of the highest paid too .

Not having an argument about public versus private sectors today .

Ofgs DJ we can’t gave a country full of public sector workers can we ?

Of course I’m pleased my DGC go to school (although I would prefer that it wasn’t miles away from home but that’s a whole other argument that I have been accused of going on and on about ) .

Bins emptied ? ✅ ( would be nice if they were just a teensy bit pleasant though ).

Roads gritted ? very slow on the uptake . The bare minimum . So no tick.