By Rachel Clun

Copyright bbc

About 30,000 people are directly employed at the company’s UK plants and about 100,000 work for firms in the supply chain. Some of these firms supply parts exclusively to JLR, while others sell components to other carmakers as well.

Business Secretary Peter Kyle said the government had decided to guarantee a loan to JLR from a commercial bank to help protect jobs at the car company’s UK facilities, but also to protect jobs in businesses that supply JLR.

“We are offering a £1.5bn credit facility to JLR With the explicit intention that that is to support the supply chain into JLR as well,” he said.

Byrne, speaking on BBC’s radio 4 on Sunday, said there would be “a lot of small print attached to these loan conditions” to ensure suppliers are helped.

“I think there are going to be a lot of contractual clauses within the loan that basically force JLR in essence to drive cash through the supply chain,” he said.

But Byrne added it remains unclear how the businesses that supply the suppliers will be assisted.