Jobs blackspot in £6m boost

Published on Friday 21 December 2001 00:00

ABOUT £6 million will be pumped into the West Lothian economy to help it recover from the massive blow the area suffered this week when the electronics giant NEC announced that 1,200 workers are to be made redundant.

Wendy Alexander, the enterprise minister, promised the cash boost in an emergency statement to the Scottish parliament yesterday.

She admitted, under pressure from opposition SNP MSPs, that it was not "new" money but part of the 10 million commitment she made earlier this year to help the West Lothian community following the closure of another electronics company, Motorola, with the loss of 3,000 jobs.

Ms Alexander’s announcement follows the disclosure on Tuesday that NEC’s plant at Livingston is to be "mothballed."

The minister told MSPs that 2001 had been an incredibly hard year for West Lothian.

The cumulative impact of the closures was having a severe effect on the confidence of the area, with individual people, their families, local communities and businesses all affected, Ms Alexander admitted.

She told the MSPs: "I want to assure you that we will do everything possible to secure not only a quick recovery for West Lothian but also the long-term stability of its economy."

The 10 million the executive had already committed for the area following the Motorola jobs losses is part of money it clawed back from the company in regional selective assistance grant.

The executive has already spent 3 million on the work of a task force set up after the Motorola decision.

Ms Alexander’s announcement means the executive is now releasing a further 6 million which will go to the West Lothian Strategic Action Plan for economic development.

She said the money would be channelled through Scottish Enterprise Edinburgh & Lothians "so that we can target local needs and priorities, quickly and effectively".

Ms Alexander recalled that, as part of a restructuring earlier this year, NEC had shed about 600 jobs in the summer and the executive had understood this was necessary in order to safeguard the long-term future of the plant.

The SNP enterprise spokesman, Andrew Wilson, claimed wealth creation in the UK had grown eight times faster than north of the Border alone and claimed Scotland had stumbled from "crisis to crisis" in the last four years, "if not for the entire post-war period."

"Will she not reflect on the fact that her performance is utterly mediocre?" Mr Wilson asked.

Ms Alexander, saying she refused to turn the debate into a political football, replied that the West Lothian economy currently had unemployment at a lower level than at the time Motorola announced its closure plans earlier this year.

She acknowledged, in reply to Fiona Hyslop, SNP list MSP for Lothians, that the 6 million the executive was announcing to help the local community, was part of the 10 million ministers had agreed to inject into the area following the Motorla closure.

Annabel Goldie, deputy leader of the Scottish Tories, told the minister that the last year had been "very hard" not just for West Lothian, but for the entire electronics industry in Scotland, where 8,000 jobs had been shed.