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Group Lotus

The job of Her Majesty's Government is to make it very clear to the Malaysian Government and to the company that is the ultimate owner—DRB-HICOM—that we take this matter very seriously, and that if it goes the wrong way, there will be serious consequences for our relationship with Malaysia. To sum up the situation, the CEO of Proton Holdings—who is now in any case only a temporary figure—was in China seeking a buyer for Group Lotus only hours after our Prime Minister spoke to him in Malaysia recently. A UK-registered company, Lotus Youngman, was set up in January 2012, only three days before HICOM bought Proton, with Group Lotus CEO Dany Bahar as a director, but this was not announced to the Malaysian stock exchange until a fortnight ago. The CEO of Group Lotus is incentivised in his contract to sell Group Lotus and has recently been in China. Any letter of comfort guaranteeing jobs in Norfolk that might appear from a Chinese buyer is unlikely to be worth much, if anything at all, especially given that KPMG has a mandate to sell the business. However, there are well-capitalised would-be buyers of Group Lotus who would definitely keep the business and the jobs in Norfolk, and 1,200 jobs are at risk in my South Norfolk constituency if this goes the wrong way. I would urge the Minister and all his colleagues, including the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister, to put all possible pressure on the Malaysian Government to ensure that DRB-HICOM permits the sale of Group Lotus only to a bidder who will provide credible guarantees for the future of the business as an ongoing concern in Norfolk. I would like the British Government to make very clear to the Malaysian Government, and to DRB-HICOM, that they consider the issue of local jobs in Norfolk to be of crucial importance and that a betrayal of the kind we have seen elsewhere in the corporate sector is unacceptable and would have far-reaching consequences.