Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown yesterday urged Scottish ministers not to give up on the BiFab yards despite the firm’s collapse into administration last week.
The former Labour leader accused the government of “betrayal” after withdrawing support for BiFab but said ministers should be lobbying for the NnG contract for eight turbine jackets to still come to Scotland.
The MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath said: “I would urge the government to talk to EDF Renewables and Siapem and to try to get this order back into Scotland, particularly into Fife, and make sure the yards can be used to deliver this contract.
“BiFab is a company that has been going for more than a century. The use of it for renewables work is where we should be at now, and for the government to withdraw support after giving a guarantee for work to go ahead is outrageous.
“The government is trying to blame the owners of the company for what has gone wrong, when it has been the government that has withdrawn its support.”
The Scottish Government invested £37.4 million in BiFab, giving it a 32.4% stake, and offered a loan facility of £15m, of which £14.9m has been drawn down.
At a Holyrood debate on Wednesday, Scottish Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie said this was the equivalent of a quarter of a million pounds for every temporary job that has been created at BiFab.
The North East Fife MSP said yesterday: “The BiFab affair has been a spectacular failure on the part of ministers who were more concerned with securing photo opportunities than they were in securing jobs.”
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