News Release

29th September 2003

ALSTOM AND TRADE & INDUSTRY SECRETARY

"Instead of telling Alstom workers to stop 'making the mistake of talking down British manufacturing' today, Patricia Hewitt should tell the 200 Alstom workers who have travelled down to Bournemouth in 40 year old rail carriages for the Labour Party Conference what action the Government will take to fight for the 1,000 jobs due to go at Alstom's Washwood Heath, Birmingham plant" says Michael Fabricant, Shadow Minister for Trade.

"While Conservative MEPs are fighting hard in Brussels to stop the French, Germans and Spanish illegally subsidising their own industries at the expense of our own, our DTI ministers sit idly by and our Secretary of State has the cheek to spew out the same tired old mantra whenever anyone expresses concern: 'Don't talk down British manufacturing'. Instead she should be telling the workers at Alstom - and all the other manufacturing plants in Britain under the threat of unfair closure - that the Government will take immediate legal action to stop illegal subsidies on continental Europe and lift the £15 billion economic burdens imposed by Labour which are both destroying our manufacturing base. She should intervene in Europe to speed up the investigation by the Commission in Brussels into whether there is a breach of EU State Aid Regulations in France including illegal support of Alstom's French factories and halt any further subsidies in the meantime.