From talking to Craig, the issue with his car’s seats and belts was two fold. Firstly they didn’t like the seat attachment to the chassis, and I suspect this dislike was exaggerated by the lotus seats also being the anchorage points for the seat belts.
That they stated they would fail the lotus seats if they did the type-approval seems ridiculous, as from my limited understanding, when a car is type approved the load testing of the seats and seat-belt system is far more onerous and objective than the opinion of a VOSA tester.
My seats although fundamentally the same as Craig’s, are installed differently. I welded in additional longitudinal tubes, with captive (welded) nuts to which the seats are bolted. The examiner said “they pass as the installation is as the type approved installation” (or words to that effect). He did say that had I not reinforced the roll bar anchorage he would have failed that.
Talking of my car, with a bit of luck I’ll get it back on Monday. Hurrah.