Jaguar seeks larger electricity allocation

THE GUARDIAN
JAGUAR SEEKS LARGER ELECTRICITY ALLOCATION
By Geoffrey Whitely, Northern Labour correspondent

Jaguar, whose Coventry car plant is one of many vehicle factories where production has been crippled by the Government's power restrictions, has appealed for a bigger electricity quota. The firm is protesting that its allocation of 50 per cent of normal consumption is too low and it is pointing out that the calculation is based on January consumption, when the factory was badly hit by strikes. The firm , which has 6,000 workers idle, has not produced a car.

In January , the month on which it claims its power allocation has been based , Labour disputes reduced production to only nine days. Jaguar is one of the British Leyland group, where extensive lay-offs occurred again yesterday for the third day. In addition to lay-offs at Jaguar and Triumph , about 21,000 workers were idle in factories of the corporation's other car divisions. This was in spite of a resumption of car production at the main BLMC assembly plant at Longbridge.

Birmingham, which brought down the number of lay-offs there by 2,000 to 5,700. But employees who had been working earlier in the week had to be laid off at other factories in the division.

British Leyland estimated last night that production worth about £5 millions had been lost by its popular and specialist car divisions so far this week. The corporation's truck and bus division in Lancashire is suffering similarly. Output has been cut by half , with only 4,000 of the factories 8,000 workers employed at any one time.