As the UK gets used to Andy Burnham’s sudden rise to the post of Prime Minister, certain themes such as Procurement Sovereignty are expected to emerge. Our new PM would much prefer it if UK Plc sourced what it needs from domestic providers, thus stimulating local markets, reducing geopolitical risk and reducing carbon emissions. But in terms of cost, quality and other criteria - for example in terms of buying a fleet of electric buses - is it really feasible?
When comparing current purchase costs, the choice would appear to be a no-brainer. A full-sized, Chinese-manufactured electric transit bus typically costs between £240,000 to £350,000, whereas its UK-manufactured counterpart weighs in at between £400,000 to £500,000. Allied to this, a foreign-made vehicle may have more integrated battery supply chains and shorter lead times as well as greater range (typically 300-380 compared to 150-260 miles).
However, there are a number of technical, legal, geopolitical, delivery and reputational issues to surmount, even before experiencing the potential feel-good moment of buying British. According to the UK National Cyber Security Centre, for instance, it is possible to shut down Chinese-built buses remotely, a prospect no transport firm board member wishes to ever contemplate.
TCO factors
When assessing Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), it would seem the financial gap narrows significantly and can even favour UK-built vehicles over a 12-15 year lifetime.
UK manufacturers such as Wrightbus and Alexander Dennis often perform better on factors that do not appear in the purchase price such as the availability of domestic parts, faster maintenance support, reduced downtime, engineer familiarity and residual value. Maintenance expenditure may be less than with diesel equivalents, but still accounts for a substantial proportion of lifetime costs. From a governance perspective, UK-built vehicles may well win out from a cyber security, software, data and incident reporting perspective.
Furthermore, there is also growing evidence that UK battery technology is rapidly improving.
UK models tend to edge foreign competitors when assessing energy consumption and charging efficiency, although it is to be borne in mind that both are significantly (circa 70%) more energy efficient than combustion engine vehicles.
These factors may lead authorities to accept a modest price premium for UK-built vehicles if whole-life operational performance is comparable. And so, the moot question for boards – “is the lower capital cost sufficient to outweigh wider strategic risks?”
UK public sector perspective
For local authorities and franchised networks such as those emerging in Greater Manchester and Liverpool City Region, the calculation is increasingly wider than pure cost:
Economic value retained in UK manufacturing
Domestic jobs and skills
Security of supply
Procurement sovereignty
ESG and supply-chain due diligence
Procurement accounts for approximate a third of public sector spending, amounting to £461billion in 2025/6, which Cabinet Officer Minister Chris Ward recently referred to, saying it should be ‘a lever for growth, not a barrier to it’. Of this £29billion is spent by local authorities with SMEs, again representing roughly a third of total spend.
However, this has not always been the case. Controversy stalked the ZEBRA (Zero Emissions Bus Regional Area) in 2024 when it was revealed that substantial taxpayer sums were purchasing Chinese-built fleets. Therefore, growing political scrutiny is another board-level front of mind consideration along with alignment with growing emphasis on domestic industrial strategy, which will doubtless feature more heavily on tender documents post-July 2026. For the record, the DoT’s pipeline for ZEB purchases over the next decade is estimated to be circa 24,000 vehicles.
Procurement Sovereignty – a wider perspective
Andy Burnham first speech as PM was not only unusual for being lectern and note-free, but it also included the word ‘procurement’, emphasising it as a key component of his economic and reindustrialisation agenda. He pledged to broaden the valued criteria and weighting, citing elements such as social value, employment practices, carbon reduction and fostering local economic development. Tender processes in Greater Manchester currently score social value at 20%, twice the current Whitehall proportion.
The move to take British Steel back into public hands the day before Burnham became PM was a precursor to this new emphasis, with ‘supply-side sufficiency’ being one pillar in his stated mission ‘undo forty years of neoliberalism’.
The 2023 Procurement Act may have been passed under the previous Sunak administration, and according to the Open Contracting Partnership it has been successful in creating faster, more flexible and transparent processes as well as switching emphasis from "most economically advantageous tenders" (MEAT) to the "most advantageous tenders" (MAT), allowing broader evaluation beyond lowest price. It would seem adherence to theses reform will be encouraged and accentuated en masse, particularly in sectors such as steel, shipbuilding, energy infrastructure and AI.
So what’s next?
In essence, as it moves from slogan to operating principle, procurement sovereignty should not be seen clumsy ‘Buy British’ protectionism, but care must be taken it neither appears to be so or is designed to mimic it. General Counsels will presumably need to prove ‘sovereignty’ and other proportionate, transparent evaluation criteria through legal frameworks, presumably in the shape of evidence packs and similar collateral that will withstand scrutiny. By the same token, non-UK manufacturers will need to show UK value in the form of UK assembly, depots, local subcontractors and the like.
