Boss of Derbyshire facility says disruption could last ‘hours, days, weeks – even months’

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Toyota has said production at its UK factories would be disrupted for weeks or maybe months if Theresa May failed to strike a Brexit deal.

The Japanese manufacturer is the latest foreign carmaker to say there could be temporary stoppages and possible job losses if there are checks at Dover and Calais as a result of no agreement.

“My view is that if Britain crashes out of the EU at the end of March, we will see production stops in our factory,” Marvin Cooke, the managing director of the company’s plant in Burnaston, told the BBC.

Asked how long the production stoppages would last, he said: “We can’t predict. It could be hours, days, weeks – even months.”

His warning follows statements by Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) and BMW about the consequences of a no-deal Brexit for the British car manufacturing industry, which employs more than 186,000 people directly and more than 856,000 indirectly.

Greg Clark, the business secretary, described the warning as “concerning”. He told the BBC’s Today programme the Chequers Brexit proposal was “a very practical set of proposals precisely calibrated to avoid those checks”.

He said he disagreed with the assessment that the EU had rejected Chequers and said there would be a heavy price to pay across the EU with car manufacturers if a deal were not struck.

But he admitted Britain would lose its status as one of the world’s leaders in car innovation without an agreement. “To see that slip through our fingers is something that we would regret for ever,” he said.

Honda warns no-deal Brexit would cost it tens of millions Read more

The Toyota plant near Derby is one of two the Japanese carmaker has in the UK and is the home of the Auris and Avensis models. Toyota has plans to take on 400 new staff as part of a £250m investment in a new production line for an updated Corolla.

It produces cars worth £12m a day, with components arriving every 37 minutes as part of the “just-in-time” production process, which means car manufacturers do not store parts in on-site warehouses.

Instead, Toyota’s factories rely on the smooth delivery of parts from within the UK and especially Europe, from where 1,000 lorries a day cross the channel with parts for car manufacturers in Oxford, the Midlands, the north and the north-east.

Cooke said the carmaker was looking at its options for storage, but checks and delays would add costs to the bottom line permanently.

“It would reduce our competitiveness. Sadly, that would reduce the number of cars made in the UK and that would cost jobs,” he said.

Last week, Honda said it would look to stockpile some components as a contingency measure. Earlier this month, JLR announced 2,000 staff would move to a three-day week at its Castle Bromwich plant – hours after the company was accused of “scaremongering” by a Brexiter MP.

BMW announced it was planning to shut its Oxfordshire plant for a month to minimise the impact of a no-deal Brexit that it fears would cause a shortage of parts.

• This article was amended on 3 October 2018. There are two Toyota plants in the UK, not nine as an earlier version said. The carmaker has nine in Europe.