Re: The new passports (Post-Brexit)
In the recent Commons debate on the issue, the Earl of Courtown said :
"All EU member states are bound by the same procurement rules"
“However, contracts do not need to be put out to tender where services can be obtained from a state-owned company."
“Some countries, therefore, do have a state-owned passport printing operation. However, in the United Kingdom, we have not had the state-owned passport printing facility since the 1990s."
This was in line with my understanding of the passport tender situation.
As in many EU related things, the UK Government has not managed British interests and our own self-protection as well as they could have - or as well as some other EU countries have done.
I think it a great pity that we are leaving EU but I understand some of the frustrations of the "Brexit movement". I think if our successive governments had represented our interests better, the British public may not have been so keen to leave.
We have been the authors of our own fate.
When Her Majesty's Stationery Office was privatised back in the 1990s, the government chose to sell off the passport printing section as a separate private company. It was sold off to a German company at that time, then later sold on to 3M - they had the contract for our passport production for many years, so our passports may have been produced in Britain but not by a British company until the government switched to using the British Company, De La Rue.
If we had wanted to retain full control of passport production, we could have done what other countries did and created a state owned private company, or retained a major share holding, then we would have more control and been able to use the same exemptions that other EU countries use now to avoid putting the contract out to EU tender.
We chose not to, which I think was short sighted.