Currently reading: MPs to question JLR bosses
JLR bosses to meet MPs over future plans

Jaguar Land Rover bosses are set to be quizzed by MPs over the company’s future plans.

Last month the firm said it would shut one of its factories in the West Midlands, claiming no redundancies would be necessary due to the expansion of the remaining plant.

A decision will not be made until next year, but Solihull is the most likely due to the aluminium manufacturing capacity at Castle Bromwich, which will probably be utilised for the next generation of Range Rover and Sport.

The JLR management will tomorrow meet Labour MP for Coventry South Jim Cunningham and other Coventry and Warwickshire MPs at House of Commons.

"I want to hear the company give clear commitments to job security to enable workers and the unions to face the future with confidence,” said Cunnigham.

“I'm also interested what new models the company plans to bring on stream to keep Jaguar Land Rover ahead of its competitors. As a quintessential British company, which is vital to the economy of Coventry and the wider Warwickshire and West Midlands economy, it's important that the chief executive David Smith reaffirms JLR’s confidence both in the highly skilled workforce within the company and their ongoing and lasting commitment to the UK as a whole.”

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Richard H 14 October 2009

Re: MPs to question JLR bosses

Successive Governments have done nothing to support or nurture industry. They sat by and let Rover go down.

I am an engineer and I worked for a supplier company that worked with Rover/MG Land Rover & Jaguar They had some really good ideas and concepts, but there was never any money to invest back and the whole thing started to slide.

The rot had set in when British Aerospace bought Rover/Land Rover from the Government, it should have been sold to Honda.

BAe sold to BMW, who didn't know what to do with it. So it withered on the vine, with minimal investment.

Ford saved Jaguar and Land Rover

TATA must be encouraged to invest on manufacturing and development over here. We all know that some JLR products will be made overseas, but it is important to maintain an active base here.

TATA just seem to get belted all the time, hardly encouraging.

The capability in the UK was as good as any BMW/VAG company, but it was allowed to die away.

Here, we support overseas sportsmen and women and build up and vilify our own.

It's the same with industry, its crazy

daddy 3 14 October 2009

Re: MPs to question JLR bosses

Bloody cheek of them MP's,if they want to help British industry then they need to put there hands in there pockets give a few million to TATA to help development of new products and then buy British made cars (Astra, Micra,Avensis,Civic and so on ) instead of all those imported government cars. ok im going to have a rant now !.

Our problem (the British) is that we want to blame anyone but ourselves, we blame the unions in the seventies or Maggie for cutting back state control of industry but we should blame us.

Did we buy British ? NO. We bought french and Japanesse because one was cheap and the other was of better quality, we used our wallets and our cash went overseas. Because of that Jag and Rover (BL) did not have the finance to make or enginer new cars so they did a little face lift, so the cars soldierd on some times over 10 to 12 years while others like Honda,Toyota,Hyundai replaced there cars after 4 years and started work on new models straight away.

Because we imported cars in there millions sales of British cars went down,no money to renew.Lack of UK sales and lack of exports, so jobs lost. Then the strikes by the unions, so poor quality cars came off the production line and sales fell further.

We only have ourselves to blame for Jaguar and Landrover and UK industry as a whole, if we keep buying BMW'S and Merc's and Lexus then we shall loose even more production overseas, and that go's for all other products as well clothes,TV's,pottery,computers.Just look back 30 years we produced all these at large and exported world wide,now just like our cars we import them all. Ok i have rant thanks.

Dorsetdave 14 October 2009

Re: MPs to question JLR bosses

golfman wrote:
As the government only gave them a token amount I can't see why they would want to question Tata's over their obvious plans to switch

They bought the crap why are we.. yes we not the government giving them any money... the money goverment dishes out is our money!

BL, BMW and Ford could not make a decent Land Rover so what makes Tata think they can or did they buy it knowing we would pay for it?