JEREMY Corbyn said Rugby has been ‘held back’ by austerity during a visit to the town yesterday (Saturday November 3).
During a visit to the under-threat GE Power Conversion site in Technology Drive, the Labour leader said his party would revive the Swansea Tidal Lagoon project for which the factory was due to provide turbines before it was abandoned in June.
He also attended a community meeting at Rugby Indian Association in Edward Street, and heard a performance by the recently formed Rugby People’s Choir.
Mr Corbyn said: “Decades of manufacturing decline and eight years of austerity have held Rugby back. Last week’s budget did nothing to revive and renew our country’s industry in towns like Rugby.
“The budget also ignored the enormous threat posed by climate change, with the Met Office last week sounding the alarm on extreme weather in the UK.
“We can’t sit idly by as our planet overheats and wealth, opportunity and good jobs are sucked out of our towns.
“Labour has a plan for a green jobs revolution to dramatically expand renewable energy and rebuild British industry. That’s why we’ll back the Swansea Tidal Lagoon, which will bring high-skill jobs designing and producing turbines to Rugby.”
Dr Debbie Bannigan, Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Rugby, said: “It was wonderful to welcome Jeremy Corbyn to Rugby. He’s seen first-hand how Rugby has been held back by years of austerity under the Tories.
“We have some of the most advanced manufacturing in the world in Rugby, and we have some of the only skills and equipment in the world that can deliver these large-scale projects.
“It’s shocking that GE intends to cease manufacturing in Rugby and 197 jobs are currently at risk. I am concerned that, if we lose these jobs from Rugby, then we’ll never get them back.
“I’m happy that the next Labour government would back the Swansea Tidal Lagoon project, which would protect this industry and create new jobs in Rugby, and I’ll continue to fight alongside the GE Unite team to keep the factory open.”
General Electric (GE) announced plans last month to close the Technology Drive site and move operations to France by the end of next year.
The company has begun a minimum 90-day consultation on a plan to make 197 employees redundant at the site – part of a wider plan to cease manufacturing at the 250-employee factory and move production to GE’s plant in Nancy, France by the end of 2019.
