MP describes Corus' decision as "gut wrenching" (From The Advertiser Series)

MP describes Corus' decision as "gut wrenching"

10:42am Friday 4th December 2009

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VERA Baird QC MP for Redcar has described the losses as "gut-wrenching".

“This is a gut-wrenching disappointment after all the effort and the hopes won by the sheer doggedness of our workers at Corus since the consortium left last April," she said.

”My heart is with those people getting this abysmal news three weeks before Christmas. I’m furious that, after our workers won months of export orders, Corus has not been able either to get a longer term contract or to clinch a deal for the sale of the plant. I understand there are no orders and both would be buyers have withdrawn.

”Earlier this week when closure came on the agenda I offered to ask the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills for a ‘Pro-act’ scheme like that in Wales. That is, a training subsidy for viable businesses whose workers are on temporary short time because of the recession. But Corus say we are beyond such a scheme and the plant must be mothballed.

”I understand 1,700 jobs will go, of which 500 could be volunteers. That means 1,200 redundancies that nobody wants, although that’s half the number originally predicted.

"The Corus Response Group with which I’ve been closely involved has been working since April in case this was to happen, so it will now give immediate support and help.

”I will be looking for all the options and every alternative, every step of the way, as I have done until now.

"For a start, there are many businesses desperate for land near the river, to whom Corus has been refusing to sell. They must immediately change that and allow other industries on to this prime site to replace these lost jobs with good ones in new businesses.”

Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland Labour MP, Ashok Kumar, said that he was personally ‘heartbroken’ by today’s announcement.

He said: “My personal hurt runs deep, as in the past, as a then British Steel Scientist, I worked on the development of the Redcar Blast Furnace and the associated plant, so I have a close personal affinity with the plant and the workforce affected. "I have worked with many of these people who are highly skilled and dedicated. They are the salt of the earth. I recognise that such an announcement, coming just before the start of the festive season will be devastating to so many families across Teesside.

“However, all is not lost. The Plant, after all, has not been closed – merely partially mothballed and, I am told by Corus, will be kept in a state of total readiness for any possible restart, with a full maintenance team kept in employment purely for such an eventuality. "The decision was, I know, a heartbreaking one for both Corus and their parent company, Tata Steel, and, I know, was only finally taken at the very highest board level.

“I need to stress that bringing a Blast Furnace back on line can be done. It was recently done at Port Talbot after a shut down of a year, and also at the associated plant at Ijmuiden in the Netherlands.

“Corus tell me that they have today spoken to Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and I am told that whilst Corus recognise the state of the market is such that no Government could artificially create orders, they will be asking for help from the Prime Minister to see that the workers get the best retraining and re-adaption package that can be devised and set up. "I will be reinforcing this demand with a personal call for the Prime Minister to respond positively to what Corus are saying, and also for Ministers to work with Corus in looking for other industrial uses for the Redcar and Lackenby Site – such as for one of the new generation of carbon capture power stations recently given the go-ahead by government or for other low carbon energy applications.

“I will also be writing to the Vice Chairman of the main Tata Board. Mr Muthuraman, who I personally know very well, asking him and his colleagues to do everything they can humanly do to see if new partners can still be found so as to restart iron and steel making on the site – which after all is still a world class iron and steelmaking complex.”

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