Dealers told Autocar they were unable to register new vehicles on 1 September, the day new 75 registration plates were launched, typically one of the busiest dates in the automotive calendar.

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has been forced to halt production and retail operations after a cyber attack disrupted its global IT systems, with staff at its plant on Merseyside told not to report to work.

The incident prompted the UK’s biggest carmaker to take its systems offline as a precaution.

In a statement, JLR said it was “working at pace to restart our global applications in a controlled manner” and stressed there was “no evidence” that customer data had been stolen.

Emails sent to staff at Halewood confirmed that shifts had been cancelled and hours banked under the site’s corridor agreement.

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