Brown in pledge to help unemployed Port Dundas distillery workers

Published on Wednesday 1 July 2009 16:10

Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged his Government stood "ready to help" the unemployed after a drinks firm today announced it was axing around 900 jobs.

Diageo said the jobs were to go in Scotland as part of an overhaul which will see the closure of its distillery at Port Dundas in Glasgow.

The drinks group is shutting the distillery, which has been producing whisky since 1810, and is also closing a packaging plant at Kilmarnock in Ayrshire and outsourcing some of its warehousing operations.

The jobs will go over the next two years, but Diageo – whose brands include Guinness, Smirnoff vodka and Johnnie Walker whisky – said the changes will also see 400 jobs created through the expansion of its packaging plant in Fife.

Labour MP Gordon Banks (Ochil and South Perthshire) said the announcement contained "mixed news with job losses over two years but also 100 million of investment" some of which would be in his constituency.

He raised the issue with Mr Brown at question time and asked him if he would do "everything you can to negate the loss of these jobs".

Mr Banks further urged the Prime Minister to meet bosses at the drinks company to discuss their plans for investment in Scotland.

Mr Brown told him: "Where there is unemployment we are ready to help."

And he said measures announced on Monday – when he had pledged the Government would spend 1 billion to create 100,000 jobs for young people and another 50,000 in areas of high unemployment – would help.

He continued: "Where there is capital investment being made by firms it is possible for them to get new capital allowances that were introduced in the Budget to stimulate new investment.

"And what we are seeking to do is have an investment led recovery, the capital spending that we have reallocated to 2008-09 and 2009-10...is vital to doing that and we will continue to back private investment in our country."