The post-Brexit blue passport will not be produced by the British firm that makes the current burgundy version, with sources suggesting the contract will be awarded to a Franco-Dutch firm instead.

Changing the colour is regarded by some Brexiters as a powerful symbol of Britain’s restored sovereignty.

But the British firm De La Rue has lost out on the contract to make them, its chief executive confirmed on Thursday morning. It is understood that Gemalto, which is listed on the French and Dutch stock exchanges, won the race for the £490m printing job.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Thursday morning, the chief executive of De La Rue, Martin Sutherland, challenged the prime minister or the home secretary to “come to my factory and explain my dedicated workforce why they think this is a sensible decision to offshore the manufacture of a British icon”.

He said he would appeal against the decision, and he refused to guarantee that no jobs would be lost at the Gateshead plant the firm uses to produce the burgundy version.

Sutherland acknowledged that his firm had been beaten on price in an open competition, but he said that was unfair. He said that in France, as a foreign-based firm, De La Rue would be barred from bidding to produce the French passport.

The Labour MP John Spellar said “no other EU country behaves like this”, claiming others “support their industry”. Such decisions had driven the Brexit vote, he said.

The Home Office said on Wednesday night that no final decision had been made on where the new passports would be printed. A spokeswoman said: “We are running a fair and open competition to ensure that the new contract delivers a high quality and secure product and offers the best value for money for customers.

“We do not require passports to be manufactured in the UK. A proportion of blank passport books are currently manufactured overseas, and there are no security or operational reasons why this would not continue.”

Theresa May told the House of Commons in February: “It is right that from autumn 2019 we will issue new blue and gold passports, which have always been the UK’s colours of choice for our passports. It is absolutely right that after we leave the European Union we return to deciding the colour of passports that we want, not that the EU wants.”

De La Rue issued a profit warning on Tuesday, telling investors its profits for the coming year are likely to be “at the lower end of the current consensus range”, without giving further details.

The pro-Brexit former cabinet minister Priti Patel described the decision on the contract as perverse.

The Liberal Democrats’ Brexit spokesman, Tom Brake, said: “The blue passport saga is turning into a farce. First it was established that we did not have to leave the EU to have blue passports. Now we learn that the passports will be printed by a foreign company. And to add insult to injury, we will pay over the odds for them because the value of the pound has fallen since Brexit and they will have to be imported.”

Eloise Todd, of the pro-remain pressure group Best for Britain, said: “The new pro-Brexit blue passports were supposed to be a statement of intent and now we find out they are to be made by the French or the Dutch. The irony is unreal.”

Gemalto offers what its website calls an “end to end ePassport solution”, and is involved in the production of 30 countries’ passports.



Under EU competition rules, large public procurement contracts must be offered to companies across the the bloc.

