Vince Cable will set up an Economic Response Task Force following Bombardier’s decision to cut more than 1,400 jobs at its Derby train factory.
The Business Secretary said that he was “very disappointed” with the Canadian company’s move. He has appointed Margaret Gildea, who runs Organisation Change Solutions, to head the task force in a bid to mitigate the economic impact of job losses at Bombardier, its supply chain and the local community.
“Philip Hammond, the Transport Secretary, and I recently wrote to the Prime Minister to highlight the issue of public procurement and how we should manage the process in the public sector to sustain a competitive supply base that meets the UK’s strategic needs within EU procurement rules,” Dr Cable said.
“We recognise that there is a need to examine the wider issue of whether the UK is making best use of the application of the EU procurement rules. The Government will now look at this area in the next phase of the Growth Review.”
He believed that Bombardier had planned to cut jobs in the UK regardless of whether it won a contract to supply 1,200 new carriages for the Thameslink route that runs from Brighton through London to Bedford.
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“We can’t reopen that whole process [tender],” Dr Cable said. “What we can do is make sure that, in the future, public procurement operates not in a protectionist way -- that’s what we don’t want -- but in a way that value for money is assessed so that it helps British industry and British suppliers.”
Bombardier blamed the Government’s decision to award the Thameslink contract to Siemens for laying off 446 permanent staff and 983 temporary workers. It later said that the permanent jobs would have been saved even if it had won the Thameslink contract.
Mr Hammond also said that the job losses were not down to the decision to award the Thameslink contract to Siemens. “The company wrote to me back in May and said that whatever the outcome of the Thameslink contract, regardless of whether they won or not, they would have to make 1,200 redundancies simply because of all the other contracts coming to an end,” he said.
However, Francis Paonessa, president of Bombardier’s UK passengers division, said: “The loss of the Thameslink contract, which would have secured workload at this site, means that it is inevitable that we must adjust capacity. We regret this outcome but without new orders we cannot maintain the current level of employment and activity at Derby.”
Mr Hammond said that the Thameslink contract procurement process had been started by the previous Government.
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“It has fallen to us to announce the result of that competition but actually we had no ability to influence the outcome of that decision,” he said. “The simple fact of the matter is under the criteria that the previous Government set out in the contract, Siemens were the winner of that competition and under European procurement law we had no choice but to announce them as the preferred bidder.”
Len McCluskey, general secretary of the Unite union, called for swift action to save Britain’s last train manufacturer. “The dire consequences of the Government’s misguided decision to exclude Bombardier from the contract to build carriages for the Thameslink project is now becoming a reality,” he said. “It’s a tragedy because these redundancies would have been needless if the Government really cared about British manufacturing and British skills.”
Tye Nosakhere, GMB regional officer, said: “This decision is the ultimate in stupidity. The Prime Minister has to call in this decision and start again. Losing 1,400 manufacturing jobs is a body blow for both Derby and the UK economy.”
Bob Crow, RMT general secretary, said that the decision was “industrial vandalism”: “We will fight this stitch up tooth and nail from the shop floor to the benches of the House of Commons.”
Darren Barber, an electrician and union rep at Bombardier, said the disappointment among the workers on the site today was palpable. The 42-year-old father of three said: “We could not believe we’ve been left in the wilderness. It’s a massive blow.
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Mr Barber, whose 24-year-old son also works at the site, said there was “utter, utter disbelief” when the Thameslink news was announced, and today’s announcement has hit further the already-low workforce. “I don’t feel angry, I do feel let down. I feel betrayed, I feel sad and not just for myself - that’s for everybody.”
He said he would welcome a Government U-turn but, failing that, hoped it would bring work to the UK in the future. “They have taken any future away from us. Give us a chance, please, that’s all we’re asking for.”