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Darling refuses long-term pledge on B&B jobs
Chancellor Alistair Darling has refused to guarantee Bradford & Bingley workers their jobs for more than six months.
In a meeting yesterday with Yorkshire Minister Rosie Winterton and regional development agency Yorkshire Forward, he repeated the Treasury promise that jobs in the stricken bank were safe until next March.
But he would not commit to a longer-term promise and said his statements supporting Scottish jobs in the wake of the HBOS-Lloyds merger had been "misinterpreted".
The Downing Street meeting was requested by Ms Winterton, MP for Doncaster Central, in the wake of Monday's part-nationalisation of B&B, which could see 1,400 workers in the Bingley head office under threat.
Last night, she said: "Workers at Bradford & Bingley have told me they wanted a written guarantee from the Chancellor that their jobs will be safe from six months and he gave that to us. It was a positive meeting.
"It is important that we made clear to the Chancellor the importance of Yorkshire to the national financial sector and he gave us strong backing."
Yorkshire Forward chief executive Tom Riordan added: "The Chancellor is very aware of the challenges we're facing in the region and made a firm commitment that the relevant Government departments and agencies will do all they can to help."
He said Mr Darling had offered full support to the Yorkshire Forward-led "rapid response task force" that will meet today for the first time with the aim of saving as many jobs in the Yorkshire financial sector as possible over the coming months.
"The Chancellor wants us to make sure we're ready to respond if there are job losses in the sector and he also wants us to look at the long-term future of the sector and particularly the advantages that UK PLC gets out of it," added Mr Riordan.
Mr Darling said: "The problems with Bradford & Bingley meant the Government had to act quickly and decisively in order to protect financial stability and depositors.
"I fully support the work of Yorkshire Forward, the regional Government office and the newly formed regional task force to help provide support to employees of Bradford & Bingley, and to plan ahead in an area well known for its financial services expertise."
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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