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In an effort to save jobs at Bombardier’s Derby plant trade union Unite has called on South Derbyshire MP Heather Wheeler to “stop peddling the government line” on the awarding of the Thameslink train contract to Siemens.
The government awarded the contract to build the new trains to the German giant in June, putting 1,400 jobs at rival Bombardier under threat. Polls have suggested that Wheeler could lose her 7,128 majority in the South Derbyshire seat at the next election, owing to local people’s anger at the decision to give the deal to Siemens.
Unite has started an online petition urging the government to rethink its position on the contract. But the government has said it has had to follow a tender process and set of legal restrictions put in place under Labour.
Unite, the largest union in the country, said that an interview that Wheeler had given to local radio had implied the Bombardier bid may have been 10 times the cost of the Siemens’ proposal ministers are favouring, and that the interview was “a slap in the face” to those who elected her in 2010.
Regional officer Tony Tinley said: “The inference she made on local radio that the Bombardier bid was 10 times more expensive than the Siemens’ bid is purely speculative, as this is confidential information.
“The role of a good local MP is keeping her constituents in employment and local industry thriving, and not peddling the ministerial line that strongly appears to favour the Siemens bid.
“If Heather Wheeler does not show more backbone in this fight, she will go the way of the last Tory MP to hold her seat – Edwina Currie – and into the dustbin of Derbyshire history.”
Unite has claimed that the government’s decision puts at risk the survival of Bombardier in the UK and also places Derby, a manufacturing hub, in jeopardy.
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