Miliband backs Fair Deal call

Speaking to the Yorkshire Post at the end of the Labour conference in Liverpool, Mr Miliband said the Government needed a regional policy if it was to succeed in tackling the North-South divide.

The Doncaster North MP said the news that nearly 900 jobs are set to go at BAe in Brough was a blow to the region and British manufacturing.

Yesterday union leaders said hundreds of East Yorkshire workers could be spared the axe at BAe Systems if the Government stepped forward.

Workers from the plant at Brough, where 900 jobs are set to be axed, sat in the front row of Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool and earned a standing ovation yesterday as the General Secretary of union Unite called on the Government to give British companies a helping hand.

In a rare emergency statement, Len McCluskey told delegates he would organise a march of workers to “focus the minds” of Ministers if the Government did not do more to help British workers.

And Labour’s deputy leader Harriet Harman rounded off the conference by admitting it had been “overshadowed” by bad economic news, including the BAe job losses at the Brough plant and in Lancashire. In total nearly 3,000 jobs are to go – which the company says is necessary to ensure its long-term future.

After travelling to Liverpool on Wednesday seven union officials from BAe plants – including Roy Cartwright, 54, Ian Gent, 34, and 52-year-old Rob Trainor from Brough – spoke to Shadow Ministers, including Ed Miliband, who has pledged to do “whatever I can” to help fight for their jobs.

The men were given a standing ovation following Mr McCluskey’s speech before Ms Harman came down from the stage to shake their hands.

The job losses were announced by BAe on Tuesday, with 899 posts to go at Brough, which is known as the Home of the Hawk. The move will see the end of manufacturing at the plant and has sparked a furious response from workers, politicians, unions and community alike.

As union leaders spoke out in Liverpool to call the Government to take action to prevent the job losses Mr Miliband, who met workers on Wednesday, said: “l can’t make magic promises, I’m not going to false promises either, but what I do say is we will work with them to do anything we could do to see whether there were jobs that could be saved and see whether we could pressure the Government.

“I think it’s about getting stuck in and not standing aside and that’s what I’m determined we do. I can’t promise anything because I don’t think it would be responsible to but it is about saying we’ll work with the workforce to see what can be done.

“It is a blow to the both the region and to manufacturing in general and I think it is a consequence of a Government that is standing aside rather than a Government that is getting stuck in.

“Their view is you leave it to the market to work out and actually that is the danger of their approach and you see that in BAe Systems. So we’re going to do absolutely everything we can to support the workers from BAe.”

Mr Miliband, who was embarrassed during a live television interview yesterday when he could not name one of the three contenders to be Labour’s Scottish leader, also warned the Government risks failing in its drive to rebalance the economy by tackling the North-South divide, a concern which sparked the Yorkshire Post’s Give us a Fair Deal campaign. The campaign calls for Ministers to give the region a fair deal on funding, investment and powers amid concerns of a two-speed recovery in jobs and housebuilding where London and the South East are recovering more quickly than Yorkshire and the rest of the north.

“I am concerned because I think that getting rid of the regional development agencies was a real set back for our economy in our region,” said Mr Miliband. “I think it was the wrong thing to do and what I say is we need that regional policy, that intervention, to ensure we get the jobs in our region.”

Mr Miliband has spent much of the week trying to explain his vision of striking a “new bargain” for the society and economy, which sparked claims he was lurching to the Left. He insisted he is not “anti-business” after a backlash from industry over his comments in speech.