Burnham presses Scottish Government on Alexander Dennis factory closure
Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has questioned why the Scottish Government has not done more to save jobs at Alexander Dennis.
The bus manufacturer announced on Wednesday it is proposing to consolidate its UK operations at a single site in Scarborough, North Yorkshire.
The decision puts 400 jobs at risk at its facility in Falkirk in another blow to the Forth Valley, which has already seen more than 400 jobs go at the Grangemouth refinery this year.
Following the announcement, Mr Burnham pointed to the purchase of 160 buses from the manufacturer for Greater Manchester's Bee Network, while the Scottish Government ordered 44.
The order from the Scottish Government was made as part of the second phase of the green bus initiative ScotZEB.
In the first phase, the Government funded the building of 137 buses, according to a press release from the bus firm at the time, meaning a total of 181 have been ordered since 2022.
Mr Burnham said: 'Our iconic Bee Network buses are a bit of Scotland right here in Greater Manchester.
'We have over 160 Alexander Dennis buses criss-crossing our city-region every day – connecting our communities to opportunity.
'If Greater Manchester can invest in world-class Scottish bus manufacturing, then why can't the SNP Scottish Government?
'Meeting the ADL (Alexander Dennis) staff in Falkirk who have helped us to make the Bee Network a reality is always a pleasure and my thoughts are with them at this difficult time.'
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said the closure is a result of Holyrood ministers 'once again overlooking Scottish industry', as he pointed to the award of a contract to build ferries being given to a shipyardyard in Turkey.
'Alexander Dennis buses are already serving passengers successfully across Greater Manchester, yet SNP ministers appear unwilling to give their full backing to the company for the benefit of people here,' Mr Sarwar said.
'John Swinney promised this scheme (ScotZEB) would 'open up new economic opportunities', but he has failed to turn those words into action.
'If the First Minister is serious about boosting Scotland's economy and supporting workers, he should start by investing in Scottish workers.'
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Scotsman
an hour ago
- Scotsman
Scots pay half billion in subsidies while China build the buses
Alexander Dennis has announced it plans to close down its Falkirk area operations to relocate to one single base in Scarborough (Picture: Michael Gillen, National World) Ministers should have been using their leverage over the big operators to keep Falkirk afloat Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... One way and another, the Scottish Government subsidises bus services by more than half a billion pounds a year. There would hardly be a bus on a Scottish road without subsidy which accounts for well over half of total revenue. There has been another £150 million for the ScotZEB programme 'to deliver zero-emission buses to Scotland's roads', the latest in a series of capital funds without which there would be precious few new or refurbished buses on our highways and by-ways. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Put these two facts together and the prospective loss of a bus manufacturing industry in Scotland borders on the incomprehensible. Beyond buses, if a 'procure in Scotland' strategy cannot be applied in this case, what hope is there of enforcing local content provisions in other sectors, notably renewable energy? Without political backbone, it won't happen. Ensuring the survival of Scotland's bus network is a good use of public funds. Equally, for any government to invest this kind of money and then claim it has no leverage over where it is spent is preposterous – and that should be the starting point in addressing the future of Alexander Dennis Ltd and maintaining a proud, skilled industry. While the Scottish Government pours money into our bus network, of more than 250 buses ordered under ScotZEB, 44 will be built in Falkirk. In the second phase of this scheme, two thirds of orders went to a single Chinese company where Scotland is doubtless the boardroom toast. There is something far, far wrong – and avoidable - about that outcome. I saw a sound-bite from Kate Forbes, the deputy first minister, in which her priority was to transfer political responsibility. Her own administration, she said sweetly, was unable to specify 'local content' because of UK legislation and, she claimed, the Scottish Government's pleas for relief from this constraint had been in vain. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Even by SNP standards, it sounded a rather premature piece of blame shifting since every sinew of current effort should surely be devoted to saving these 400 jobs in Falkirk and Larbert, not explaining them away. Ms Forbes' attempt at self-exoneration also failed the credibility test on multiple grounds. Most obviously, the publicly owned Greater Manchester Bees Network has purchased 160 state of the art buses from Falkirk and is delighted with the product. Somehow, the office of Andy Burnham found a way through challenges which Ms Forbes portrays as show-stoppers. Did she or her civil servants ever pick up the phone to Manchester? In the last few days, in an effort to head off redundancies, the Secretary of State for Scotland, Ian Murray, has written to all the Metro Mayors in England, who will soon be ordering buses, asking them to follow Manchester's example. Meanwhile, the Scottish Government claims to be helpless while the orders it funds flow out to China. The legislation which supposedly presents such an obstacle to the Scottish Government is the Subsidy Control Act of 2022 which replaced what existed pre-Brexit. 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Scotsman
an hour ago
- Scotsman
SNP told to 'look themselves in the mirror' over bus maker Alexander Dennis job cuts
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The Herald Scotland
2 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
As politicians bicker, Scotland faces losing Alexander Dennis
This is all the more so when it comes to manufacturing job losses in Scotland, perhaps because of the extent to which this sector has dwindled over the decades. The news that up to 400 jobs are at risk at Falkirk bus manufacturing firm Alexander Dennis is first and foremost a massive blow to the people directly affected. It means there is a very real prospect of hundreds more people joining the ranks of the unemployed in an area hit hard by the closure of Scotland's only oil refinery at Grangemouth, with the loss of around 400 job losses. It is always disheartening when concerns over widespread job cuts come a distant second in the minds of those seeking to score political points from corporate decisions taken to reduce workforces. Yet, coming so soon after further job cuts were announced by oil and gas giant Harbour Energy in Aberdeen, a move blamed by the company on the UK Government's energy profits levy, the proposed cuts at Alexander Dennis have led to an impression of decline in Scottish industry. Opponents of the Scottish Government have been quick to assert that events at Alexander Dennis are yet more evidence of the administration's flawed strategy and failure to protect industry and jobs. These critics repeatedly point to the delays and cost over-runs in the delivery by the nationalised Ferguson Marine shipyard of two ferries to serve the west coast and the time it has taken to find a buyer for Prestwick Airport, which was taken into state ownership in 2013, in justification of these claims (even though Prestwick is now regularly making profits and beginning to build a lucrative air freight operation). The Scottish Government has also come under for fire failing to deliver the amount of "green" jobs in the transition from oil and gas production to renewable energy that ministers forecast. Read more: But in the matter of Alexander Dennis, which has been part of NFI Group since the North American company acquired the firm for £320 million in 2019, any culpability on the part of the Scottish Government seems hard to discern. Winnipeg-based NFI, which is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, looks simply to have assessed its costs and concluded that it can save money by consolidating its UK bus body building operations into a single site. Unfortunately for Scotland, the site selected for this work is in Scarborough, not Falkirk. Euan Stainbank, the Scottish Labour MP for Falkirk, said the Scottish Government should have done more to support Alexander Dennis by ordering more buses from domestic manufacturers to serve local networks. He said Greater Manchester had bought more than five times the amount of buses from Alexander Dennis than had been purchased to serve the industry in Scotland. But ultimately in Scotland it is down to private bus companies to decide which manufacturers they wish to buy their vehicles from – not the Scottish Government. Naturally, those fighting to prevent the proposed cuts in Falkirk are urging Scottish ministers to do all they can to stop or limit the amount of redundancies during the consultation period that is now under way. Perhaps there is some financial incentive that can be offered to entice NFI to change its mind, but it is hard to be optimistic. Paul Davies, president and managing director of Alexander Dennis, hinted at the limitations of UK policy when the proposed cuts were announced on Wednesday. 'While stakeholders have been sympathetic of the situation, the stark reality is that current UK policy does not allow for the incentivisation or reward of local content, job retention and creation, nor does it encourage any domestic economic benefit,' he said. 'We have warned of the competitive imbalance for some time and would like to see policy and legislative changes that incentivise the delivery of local benefit where taxpayer money is invested. We strongly believe funding that supports public transport should lead to investment in local jobs, domestic supply chains, technology creation and a recurrent tax base.' There is a certain, painful irony to the situation too. While the Grangemouth refinery was declared by Petroineos to be no longer financially viable in the face of global competition and the drive to net zero, the Alexander Dennis site in Falkirk has been involved in the production of buses powered by electrical batteries and hydrogen, in other words at the cutting edge of modern transport technology. As veteran Scottish politician Kenny MacAskill, leader of the Alba Party, noted, it is 'perverse when Scotland is awash with renewable energy and is the base for the UK's green hydrogen that a company specialising in hydrogen buses is forced to relocate elsewhere'. Sadly, past experience in Scotland suggests that once a company decides to close operations, there is no going back. Petroineos could not be persuaded to change course at Grangemouth, and back in 2009 Diageo proceeded to shut down its Johnnie Walker plant in Kilmarnock despite significant protests at the time. It looks for all the world that the proposed cuts at Alexander Dennis are destined to become another sad chapter in Scottish industrial history, and one that will be especially poignant given the company's proud and long manufacturing legacy.
