Chinese electric cars imported to the UK to help hit net zero targets will enable Beijing to spy on British citizens, ministers have warned.

With car companies facing quotas for zero emissions sales from next year ahead of a ban on new petrol and diesel vehicles in 2030, China is predicted to dominate the UK market because of its prowess in providing cheap electric cars.

However, sources at the heart of government have raised concerns that technology embedded in the vehicles could be used to harvest huge amounts of information, including location data, audio recordings and video footage, while also being vulnerable to remote interference and even being disabled.

Meanwhile, a cross-party group of MPs warned the Government that Britain is poised to cede control of the “critical infrastructure” of its car market to Beijing “with all the attendant security risks”.

Therefore - and we have no doubt at all that this will be next - Jaguar Land Rover must be subsidised so that the Indians can have the data instead. Or Ford, so the Americans, BMW the Germans and so on. Or, for the truly weird, there will be an insistence that British Leyland be revived.

Because Johnny Foreigner might find out that location - a British car is being driven in Britain - therefore cars in Britain must be vastly more expensive through either the taxes to pay subsidies or the banning of the cheapo version made by J Foreigner.

The actual answer here is for government to butt out. Anyone worried that the sojourn on Lover’s Lane is being tracked in Guangdong won’t buy a cheapo Chinese. The rest of us can get on with our own trade offs over data, cost, privacy and the rest.

After all, it’s probably better that someone on the other side of the world has that Lover’s Lane tape than someone inside our own government, isn’t it? Shenzen really isn’t going to care while locals might well try to use it.