City council to vote on funding JR challenge to train contract award

Derby City Council will next week vote on whether to provide financial backing for a judicial review challenge by the Unite union to the government’s decision to award the Thameslink trains contract to Siemens and not Bombardier.

The £1.4bn contract to supply 1,200 trains was awarded in June. Canadian-owned Bombardier employs 3,000 jobs in Derby and is reviewing its operations after missing out on the deal.

The motion – which will be moved at a meeting of full council on 12 September by the Council’s Leader, Cllr Hickson (Conservative) – reads: “Council notes with concern and alarm both the Prime Minister’s and the Government's continued refusal to reconsider the award of the preferred bidder status for the Thameslink contract to Siemens thus exposing Bombardier to possible closure.

“Council reaffirms its view that this decision is fundamentally flawed and perverse bearing in mind the fact that no economic impact assessment was carried out as part of the evaluation process without which any final decision on best value cannot properly be evaluated. This, coupled with the fact that Siemens do not have a working and tested bogie and allegations of corruption against them would suggest that the whole competition process should be started again with new, fairer and more appropriate evaluation criteria.

“Council therefore confirms its intention to work with UNITE as the main affected body to explore the viability of a judicial review. Council therefore recommends Cabinet to financially support any judicial review proceedings brought by Unite (and/or Bombardier) to overturn the decision to award the Thameslink contract to Siemens subject to the Director of Legal & Democratic Services being satisfied that Unite have an arguable case.”

Unite has published a survey today (6 September) of 125 companies across the country that supply Siemens and/or Bombardier in the UK, which found that many were pessimistic that the business lost from Bombardier would be replaced by work for Siemens. More than 40% of the businesses surveyed said they planned to execute job losses.

“Despite the government looking to review the UK’s procurement process in the light of recent job losses suffered at Bombardier, the announced one-year delay to the Crossrail contract is unlikely to help the employment picture as many jobs will already be lost,” Unite warned.

General Secretary Len McCluskey claimed the contract award would not just affect 3,000 jobs in Derby but thousands more up and down the country.

He said: "This powerful survey is a devastating indictment of the government's decision on Thameslink. It is absolutely scandalous that the Tory-led government did not stop to examine the social and economic impact of not choosing Bombardier for the Thameslink contract.

"From Aberdare in Wales to [David] Cameron's own Oxfordshire constituency of Witney, countless small and medium sized companies will pay the price for this decision. Some companies are even having to lay-off workers now, and a third believe the decision will have a substantially negative impact on their business.

"The fact that fewer than one per cent believe they will benefit from the government's preferred bidder is a devastating indictment of the government's manufacturing strategy. The Department of Transport has openly admitted it failed to carry out an impact assessment on the consequences of not awarding the contract to Bombardier.”

Philip Hoult