BiFab: Gordon Brown accuses UK and Scottish Governments of betraying workforce

He has called on both to launch inquiries after it was announced last night that they could not give a £30m contract guarantee under existing subsidy rules.

He said the funding would have safeguarded 450 jobs and gained Scotland a foothold in North Sea wind platform work.

Mr Brown, whose former Kirkcaldy constituency included the Burntisland yard - BiFab also has a base in Methil - said the workers had “been thrown to the wolves.”

His comments came after the Scottish Government - a minority shareholder in the troubled engineering firm which has Canadian owners - said that it could not give the £30m contract guarantee under existing state aid regulations.

Fiona Hyslop, the Scottish government's economy secretary, said that its hands were tied, and that BiFab’s situation was “a culmination of a number of issues.”

She said the Scottish Government had “left no stone unturned” in its search to secure the yards’ future.

But the backlash continued, with Mr Brown weighing in with a strongly-worded attack.

He said: “This is nothing less than a betrayal of the BiFab workers and Burntisland, and a betrayal too of promises of work for Fife and the rest of Scotland in the offshore renewable industry.

19,000 Fifers in Phase One of COVID vaccine which could start next...

“This work has not been lost because Fife cannot do the work, or did not win the work in open competition - it has been lost because after winning the work, the Scottish Government pulled the plug on the company.”

Mr Brown said he had seen the company’s plans, and was confident BiFab could deliver.

He continued: “If the real issue is securing guarantees of future investment, I know of potential Chinese interest in investing in the Fife yards.”

Mr Brown called for two inquiries from the UK and Scottish Governments - and said Holyrood must “urgently debate” the matter.

He said Holyrood’s finance committee must “look into why promises made a year ago have been unceremoniously ditched with claims that such support is against the legal advice that has never been explained or published.”

Christmas bubbles will be allowed for 5 days over Christmas - all the...

And he turned his focus on Westminster calling for a UK parliamentary inquiry “to explain why in the week that the Prime Minister promised a revolution in renewable energy, his government has walked away from a request to help save a vital contract.”

Mr Brown added: “The Scottish Parliament should urgently debate why, when our priority is North Sea renewables jobs, work that was won by BiFab in an open competition has been turned away, and a vital contract in offshore wind is being pushed overseas depriving Scotland of jobs at home.

“The two governments say a working party is still to meet to explore options for the future of the yards and to strengthen measures to support the renewables supply chain.

“One of these options has to be to restore £30m worth of work on the North Sea wind turbine jackets to Burntisland and Methil.”

Thank you for reading this article on our free-to-read website. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by Coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

Please consider purchasing a subscription to our print newspaper to help fund our trusted, fact-checked journalism.

https://www.localsubsplus.co.uk/nord/dm/FFP/V