Time and again companies and industries have been failed by the Conservative Government – and now another 200 highly skilled people find themselves heading for the dole queue. We know that energy costs have been crippling for many Teesside industries – but our short-sighted government, which has given some support, has failed to ensure businesses got the support they needed to get them through a challenging period despite repeated calls from myself and the industry for them to do something.
I can’t for the life of me understand why they abandoned the steel industry, sat back and allowed the world-renowned Cleveland Bridge and Engineering go to the wall and failed to support the Sirius mine and its many local investors preferring to facilitate its sale to a multi-national company leaving them with little. Now they have failed another local business and their workers again. This constant failure of industry, especially steel, also flies in the face of the Conservative Tees Valley Mayor’s election pledge to “bring back steelmaking to Teesside”. The opposite is happening while he and his Government sit on their hands.
I now fear for other companies – we’ve already seen ammonia production halted at Billingham and I know other companies continue to face challenging times. We need help protect existing industries not just chase the promise of new jobs sometime in the future which may never materialise.”