𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds has refused to rule out that taxpayer money could be pumped into struggling Jaguar Land Rover.

He will meet with Britain’s biggest car manufacturer early this week after the firm announced a major redundancy programme.

Up to 4,000 jobs may be lost because of the impact of tariffs and a drop in sales.

JLR notified staff it is set to open a voluntary redundancy programme, a year on from a cyber attack which brought production to a halt for more than a month.

Mr Reynolds said: “A company the size of JLR, which is a huge British success story, at various times in its business cycle, the number of, directly, people it employs will change.

“If this is about making sure over time that the workforce is right to make the business as competitive as possible, that’s the conversation we need to have.

“Of course you want to mitigate any job losses.”

Asked if there could be financial support to protect those jobs, he added: “Not if it’s to bail people out.

“If it’s about long-term investment in the future, we do invest alongside industry on that.”

Chancellor John Healey is preparing to deliver a speech in the Midlands on Monday promising to boost economic growth by changing how the government values investment in infrastructure such as transport and housing.

JLR, which is based in Coventry, has not confirmed the scale of the job cuts but said it would “simplify” the business and “improve efficiency and build greater resilience”.

A spokesman for the firm added: “We informed our colleagues, and trade union partners that JLR is opening a voluntary redundancy programme offering salaried and management team members the opportunity to leave the business.

“We will share further information with our colleagues first.”

The company did not rule out the prospect of some compulsory redundancies as part of the plans.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said her organisation had been warning about a “perfect storm” hanging over the automotive industry for some time.

She said: “Death by a thousand cuts has been going on under the nose of successive governments.”

She added there had been “intensive” discussions over the weekend about mitigating jobs losses.