Thanks to all for your replies !
By chance, I solved it today.
Until today, it has been quite warm and I have had the climate temperature set at "LO", sometimes with the aircon on and sometimes off.
However, today it was cooler, so I set a temperature of 17C, and the start/stop started working !
After a little investigation, it seems that if it set to "LO" , the start/stop will not work, but set it to a temperature, and it works ! It works whether or not the aircon is on.
This should perhaps be added to the list of conditions as shown in the user manual !