I understand that a report has been circulated by Tony Kelly of Ryde Trades Council who was in a delegation of trade unionists I met on Friday, June 5, to discuss the closure of the Vestas Blades factory in Newport with the loss of at least 500 jobs. While the report highlights a small part of our discussions there are two points made which I cannot allow to pass unchallenged.
I quote: “There was an air of wonderment at the fatalistic attitude that Andrew Turner had in accepting the right of Vestas to close at a moment’s notice with no suggestion of concern from the MP on what the loss of 6oo jobs would do to the Island’s economy.
And “The Trade Union side felt that it was a message of despair relying on the hope that private capital could provide funds to build the Island economy sufficiently to make up for the loss of Vestas jobs and the other job losses at Trucast in Ryde.”
While that may have been Mr Kelly’s perception, it is far from being my true position and I refer you to a statement I made on May 20. I believed the purpose of the meeting was not to make speeches but to explore practical ways of safeguarding the future of Vestas’ factory and the livelihoods of hundreds of my constituents and their families.
It was agreed we needed the support of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA), whose intervention could make a difference. I had already been in discussions with Ministers but I readily agreed to use my influence as Member of Parliament for the Island to escalate the matter to the Secretary of State and to ask further questions of SEEDA and I have sent letters to them as agreed.
During Friday’s meeting a solution was put forward by one delegate — which was not apparently supported by anyone else — for the state to build factories and to dictate to private businesses when, where and how they they should operate them. In my opinion this suggestion is based on discredited, far-left ideology and, as I said at the meeting, unless there is a change in the law, the idea was dead in the water. We need to persuade established businesses and entrepreneurs of the many advantages of operating on the Isle of Wight where we have a pool of skilled, settled and dedicated people, looking for well-paid, sustainable jobs.
I am sorry that Ryde Trades Council has chosen to misrepresent me, particularly as no-one questioned my position at the meeting, which I thought was cordial and constructive.
