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Stephen Flynn has warned that Westminster is “sleeping on Scotland’s deindustrialisation”, as he clashed with a minister over the ExxonMobil shutdown. Murali plant.
SNP Folk The leader criticized the government’s decision not to intervene due to the closure of the Fife ethylene plant.
energy And Business Minister Chris McDonald indicated Government Not ready to keep the site open.
ExxonMobil announced its ethylene manufacturing plant, which produces the base material for many plastics, is expected to close in February, after “considering various options to continue production and testing the market for a potential buyer”.
Mr McDonald said in a quick statement that he had spoken to Paul Greenwood, chairman of ExxonMobil UK, and the company had told him the plant was inefficient and would need to spend about £1 billion on it to make it profitable.
Mr Flynn told the Commons he had also spoken to Mr Greenwood and added: “While the minister is arguing that this has nothing to do with his policy in relation to the North Sea, that was certainly not what I was told, which I am sure the minister will make clear from the dispatch box.
“But before doing so, he also said that Exxon is not suggesting that the closure was due to a lack of action or will on the part of the government.
Meanwhile, Exxon’s statement says, ‘This is dependent on market conditions coupled with the current UK economic and policy environment.’
“So tonight we have 400 families who know they have no certainty about their ability to pay their bills, an entire community affected as a result of this decision and a UK Government minister who is not being clear with them, one, why this has happened, and second, why he is not helping them.”
Mr Flynn also said: “We know he chose to intervene in Scunthorpe, but he chose not to do so again in Grangemouth, as the member opposite will remember, and he is now choosing not to do so in Mossmoren.
“They are slumbering the deindustrialisation of Scotland.
“It’s on them.”
Parliament was reminded of the situation earlier this year on Saturday, when MPs approved ministers’ takeover of the British Steel plant at Scunthorpe, south of the border in North Lincolnshire.
The Minister replied that ExxonMobil had said the closure was “not due to a lack of action or will on the part of the Government”, and Mr Flynn shouted from his seat “You are deceiving the public”.
Mr McDonald added: “Wherever the Government has intervened in the past, there has been a fundamentally sound business proposition, and I’m sure (Mr Flynn) – he probably failed to mention it because perhaps he’s forgotten – the Government has made a £200 million commitment to Grangemouth, with 100 projects running behind it to support people in Grangemouth.
“And obviously he didn’t want to welcome it.”
Brian Leishman said Mossmoran’s move is an “all too familiar story – private capital shutting down industry and workers to be thrown aside as disposable commodities and a community devastated”.
He said it was a “carbon copy of what happened” in his Alloa and Grangemouth constituency, where an oil refinery closed in April this year.
The Labor MP said, “Now, the Government has moved in Scunthorpe, but not in Grangemouth, and it looks like it will not move in Mossmoran.”
“Why not? Because Scotland is once again a victim of long-term deindustrialisation.”
He later said: “For goodness’s sake, let’s have a little common sense and take some form of government ownership of what happens next in Grangemouth.”
Mr McDonald said ministers “think very keenly about these issues in Scotland” but warned there was “no good business proposition” to enable intervention.
“The amount of money the company was asking for and the fundamental lack of profitability of the business over such a long period of time meant it was not a viable opportunity, and that is why we need to look at how the workforce in Fife and elsewhere can make the transition to our new green economy,” he said.
The SNP’s Aberdeen North MP Kirsty Blackman said some workers in the oil and gas sector had “no confidence in this Labor government” to promote a “just transition” to the green economy.
Mr McDonald replied that “after 2030 you can see clean energy really taking off, but really these few years are a really difficult transition where we need to work together”.
conservative shadow scottish Secretary Andrew Bowie said: “The high cost of energy and the government’s war on the North Sea are killing industry in this country”.
He added: “Britain can’t afford this Labor government. Frankly, Scotland can’t afford this Labor government.”
“This is not an equitable transition, it is anything but an equitable transition. This is the deliberate de-industrialization of the United Kingdom.”
The Tory frontbencher later said: “We have to find a way to decarbonise without destroying our domestic industrial base.”
ExxonMobil said in a statement that the closures “reflect the challenges of operating in a policy environment that is accelerating the exit of critical industries, domestic manufacturing and the high-value jobs they provide”.
It continued: “We considered various options to continue production and tested the market for a potential buyer, but market conditions combined with the current UK economic and policy environment, high supply costs and plant efficiency do not make for a competitive future for the site.”