BIRDS EYE CLOSURE IN GRIMSBY

Early day motion 304, tabled 6 December 2004 by Austin Mitchell (Labour). Signed by 42 members.

That this House is concerned at the proposal by Birds Eye (Unilever Frozen Foods) to close its Grimsby factory which has operated productively and profitably for 50 years, putting 620 people out of work and rewarding their longstanding partnership with the company with P45s; believes that, rather than rushing to close to maintain an excessively high rate of return in the face of competitive markets, Unilever, as a good corporate citizen of Grimsby with a very good record as an employer and investor in the training of its workforce, and a producer of top of the range product, should fight back by investing, re-equipping, innovating and developing new opportunities and new products in collaboration with its workforce, rather than surrendering to future fears and rewarding their loyal co-operation with redundancy; further believes that any firm which does not compete to serve the consumer in new ways with new products and competitive, efficient production relegates itself to a long term decline and a return on capital doomed to fall remorselessly; and calls on the parent Unilever Group to intervene to stop a closure which shames the name of the firm.

Signatures by party: Labour 37, Liberal Democrat 3, Labour/Co-operative 1, UUP 1.