The government has made clear it will not spend taxpayers' money to reduce job losses at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), after it emerged that the UK's largest carmaker is planning up to 4,000 redundancies.
Ahead of crucial talks on Tuesday between JLR, union leaders and government officials, the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, said it was not his job to "intervene and run businesses".
JLR, owned by Indian conglomerate Tata Motors, told staff on Friday to expect a voluntary redundancy programme as it tries to strengthen itself against difficult conditions with £1.7bn in cuts over two years.
The Coventry-based company is expected to provide more details on job cuts as soon as Monday, which could include an admission that compulsory job losses are possible.
The expected cuts, which amount to almost 12% of JLR's 34,000-strong UK workforce, threaten to provide an early reality check on Andy Burnham's pledge to "reindustrialise" Britain.
Sources said they expect the redundancies, first reported in the Sunday Times, to fall more heavily on senior roles in management and research and development than on shop floor production workers.
JLR is understood to be responding to pressure from Tata to offset a slump in sales, made worse by the fallout from last year’s cyber-attack and the impact of Donald Trump’s tariff wars.
Speaking on the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg show on Sunday, Reynolds indicated that the government was unwilling to put money into the business to reduce job losses. Asked if there could be financial support to protect the jobs, he said: "Not if it’s to bail people out.
"If this is about making sure over time that workforce is right to make the business as competitive as possible, that’s the conversation we need to have," Reynolds said, referring to the wider "challenging" environment for the auto sector.
"We need to adapt to evolving global market conditions," a spokesperson for JLR, which has its largest plant in Solihull in the West Midlands, said.
Reynolds is expected to face pressure to help stem the number of job cuts from Unite general secretary Sharon Graham during crunch talks with JLR chief executive PB Balaji, scheduled for Tuesday. Union officials will push for JLR to avoid compulsory job losses in favour of retraining or voluntary redundancy where possible.
While Reynolds indicated that no bailout would be available, he hinted at other options to support carmakers. He did not rule out watering down government targets for UK automakers to reach 80% zero-emission car sales by 2030, which would lead to a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2035, pointing to an open consultation on the issue.
Carmakers and unions have lobbied hard for a slower transition, saying the targets outpace actual customer demand. Reynolds also said the government was sometimes prepared to invest "alongside" industry.
In 2024, the Labour government led by Keir Starmer agreed to invest £500m in another Tata business, the Port
