'Yet another blow to honest, hardworking people' - MP Brian Leishman on ADL closure plans

This week’s news that bus manufacturer Alexander Dennis is planning to move its operations to England, is therefore a dreadful development, with up to 400 jobs at risk in the area.

That amounts to more than a fifth of the company’s whole workforce in the UK – with Alexander Dennis proposing to consolidate its activities in Scarborough.

My working-class constituents are already reeling from the closure of the Grangemouth refinery, something I fought against in earnest, and an issue which I have written about at length in this column.

With livelihoods at stake, I will stand shoulder to shoulder with the workers in Larbert in my constituency and across the wider area.

I have written to the Secretary of State for Transport to request an urgent meeting and to discuss what the UK Government can do to avert job losses. I am also offering to meet with First Minister John Swinney, as well as company directors, to discuss this important and challenging issue.

This is a particularly disappointing development because the Scottish Government has only ordered 44 double-decker buses from Alexander Dennis in its recent Phase Two of the Scottish Zero Emission Bus Challenge Fund (ScotZEB 2) – out of a total of 253 expected vehicle orders to be delivered by a bus industry consortium led by Zenobē.

In contrast, as many as 160 Alexander Dennis buses were purchased for Greater Manchester’s Bee Network – more than three times the order through ScotZEB 2.

Why is it that Greater Manchester can invest in Scottish bus manufacturing, but the SNP Scottish Government cannot?

Ironically, ScotZEB 2 was launched at the same Larbert facility of Alexander Dennis in 2023.

Once again, working class people and Scottish industries are being abandoned by the very government meant to champion them, while Greater Manchester’s Labour Mayor Andy Burnham invested in them.

It is not the first time the SNP has overlooked Scottish industry or mismanaged transport in our country either.

For example, the Scottish Government knew for years that the Grangemouth refinery would be axed, yet they did little to nothing about it.

And let us not forget how a contract to build new CalMac ferries went to a Turkish shipyard, rather than the vessels being built on the Clyde.

All in all, this feels like yet another failure by the political class and yet another blow to honest, hardworking people.

Looking at the development through a wider lens, it is not just the 400 direct jobs at risk.

Alexander Dennis works in the context of a wider domestic supply chain. For every job in bus manufacturing, there are three to four other jobs across support services and suppliers we need to think about.

This is another massive industrial issue in Alloa and Grangemouth and I will be putting pressure on the Scottish and UK Governments to do everything in their powers to avert wide-scale job losses in my constituency.