Rover cost 900m good stuff Tony

THE collapse of MG Rover has cost public and private enterprises nearly £900 million, according to the Commons Public Accounts Committee.

The investigation by MPs has determined that taxpayers picked up a £270 million bill for Rover’s failure. Private companies lost £109 million in unpaid bills and a pension deficit of £500 million is likely be cleared by the industry-funded Pension Protection Fund.

The committee’s report, which is published today, identified “serious gaps” in the Department of Trade and Industry’s planning. The MPs felt that the DTI failed to keep up with rapidly changing events and had not planned for the company’s catastrophic failure.

The Public Accounts Committee said that the collapse of Rover could have been worse if local agencies in the West Midlands had not been planning for Rover’s decline since 2000.

The committee also made veiled criticism of the directors of Phoenix Venture Holdings, which ran the company between 2000 and 2005. During this period the directors received £40 million from Rover.


David Robertson at The Times