Ministers have only raised false hopes for JLR suppliers - there has been no 'decisive action'

Following our decisive action, this loan guarantee will help support the supply chain and protect skilled jobs in the West Midlands, Merseyside and throughout the UK," claimed Peter Kyle, the business secretary, at the weekend. Decisive? Really?

- Nils Pratley

That is not how life looks to many on the ground in the UK car industry. As we report today, some smaller suppliers to Jaguar Land Rover are shouting that cash flow pressures on them are getting worse. Nothing has changed since last week, they say.

One cannot be surprised, because the government's intervention took the most roundabout route. The state, via the UK Export Finance scheme, merely agreed to guarantee up to 80% of a five-year £1.5bn loan that JLR had secured from a commercial bank. The guarantee presumably enabled JLR to borrow at a slightly cheaper rate, but that is all. It cannot be considered a game-changer for two reasons.

First, JLR's access to cash was never seriously in doubt. The company should be quite capable of raising debt under its own steam if it needs more than the £5bn liquidity it was trumpeting just weeks before August's cyber-attack.