Jim Steer highlights a review by the last government that concluded the transport community broadly favours membership of Europe. But he says that Britain hasn’t yet figured out quite how it works. He says “the truth is we have made poor Europeans”. He continues: “How long has it taken for the penny to drop, for example, that it’s okay by EU procurement rules to favour a domestic supplier? It’s not hard to tilt the playing field just a little by specifying contract obligations, to provide apprenticeships, and so on – as HS2 Ltd is now doing, for instance, and TfL has done before it. Things are changing fast. Indeed, it wouldn’t surprise me if there were four domestic train manufacturers by the year end, rather than just Bombardier and Hitachi.”
- We've read it in: Transport Times, Issue 131 (April 2016), p13
