Brown in talks on Remploy closures

Feb 10 2013

A former prime minister and a Scottish minister will meet the UK Work and Pensions Secretary this week to discuss a rescue plan for two factories which employ disabled workers.

Gordon Brown and Enterprise Minister Fergus Ewing will join MPs and Fife Council representatives at a meeting with Iain Duncan Smith to discuss the future of Remploy factories in Cowdenbeath and Leven.

The two factories are earmarked for closure following losses of £2.4 million between 2010 and 2011.

Mr Brown, Labour MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, will be accompanied by party colleagues Glenrothes MP Lindsay Roy and Dunfermline MP Thomas Docherty.

They will argue that the factories have full order books and hold the prospect of expansion if their future can be assured.

The three MPs say a doubling of transitional help from the UK and Scottish governments is needed to save the two 60-year-old factories.

In joint statement, the MPs said: "In most of the 64 cases of Remploy privatisation, the factories have been closed and privatisation has become either liquidation or decimation of the original workforce.

"The Government's 'one size fits all' approach is particularly inappropriate given the huge potential to create a viable business in Fife.

"This Government has emphasised that we must place a premium on competitive manufacturing - these factories can survive, keeping the work in Britain, if the UK and Scottish governments do more."

In a parliamentary debate called by Mr Brown last month, the MPs argued that the UK transitional help of around £140,000 a year for three years is not enough to allow the two factories to break even.