28 April 2011 - Keith Taylor, the Green MEP for Hampshire and the South East, is visiting Andover on market day to ask people to sign a petition about job losses at Twinings (1).
Keith Taylor MEP is gathering local support for his challenge to the EU over their decision to fund the company to open a new factory in Poland, leading to a loss of jobs in Hampshire. Keith will use the petition signatures to give backing to an official petition, which will be submitted by the trade union Usdaw, which he hopes will be considered by the European Parliament’s ‘Petitions Committee’, of which he is a member. This committee gives MEPs the chance to challenge how EU laws have been applied.
Keith is challenging the decision made by the EU Commission to approve a €12 million grant from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) to Twinings’ Polish subsidiary company which will help fund a new €45m (£37.7m) Twinings factory in Poland. Nearly 400 workers from Andover and North Shields have been, or will be, made redundant as a result of the relocation of Twinings’ tea production to Poland and China.
Keith said: “This decision by the EU has had a big impact on Twinings’ workers in Andover. EU regeneration funds, funded by the taxpayer, should not be used to subsidise the relocation of Twinings’ production to Poland and I’m disappointed that this well regarded local company is happy to misuse EU funds in this way. I’m hoping that my visit to Andover will show them, and the EU, how strongly people feel about this issue and that it’ll give further weight to my work to challenge this terrible decision.”
Keith Taylor has recently written to the Employment Minister, Chris Grayling MP, urging the government to apply for EU funds to help redundant workers at Andover’s Twinings tea factory (2). Keith has also met the EU Commissioner for Employment, Mr László Andor to voice his view that EU funding had been unfairly given to Twinings to relocate and to discuss an application for funding to help workers.
ENDS
Notes to Editors
1. Keith is collecting signatures from a stall outside M&S and around the market between 10am and 1pm. The full text of the petition is below:
NO TO TWININGS TEA JOB TRANSFER TO POLAND
“We, the undersigned, support the trade union Usdaw’s petition to the European Parliament requesting that they and the European Commission take action over the grant of €12m from the European Regional Development Fund to R. Twining and Company Sp. z.o.o. which will be used to partly finance the relocation jobs and production from Twinings’ UK factories in Andover and North Shields to Poland”
2. The letter was sent to the Employment Minister, Chris Grayling MP, by Keith Taylor, the Green MEP for the South East, the South East’s Labour MEP, Peter Skinner, and the North East’s Labour MEP, Stephen Hughes.
