Fire engine worker leaves First Minister red-faced

NICOLA Sturgeon was put on the spot yesterday after hailing a Scots firm which supplies fire engines across the UK – only for a worker to pull her up on the SNP’s independence plans.

Project manager Elliot Boyce grilled the First Minister after a meet-and-greet photo opportunity at the firm.

The recently-promoted apprentice spoke up about his concerns that another vote to split the union could put his company – which has 200 employees and supplies 80 per cent of the UK’s fire engines and specialist emergency vehicles – at risk.

The First Minister had met staff and apprentices at Emergency One in Cumnock, Ayrshire, before holding a public question

‘Keep boosting local jobs’

and answer session in the Town Hall. Mr Boyce was in the audience and took his opportunity to quiz Miss Sturgeon over how the firm would continue to bid successfully for work if Scotland was outside the UK.

He said: ‘We need to continue to trade with English, Welsh and Northern Irish local authorities to keep boosting jobs in the local area.’

The First Minister dismissed Mr Boyce’s concerns, saying: ‘It’s really important that whatever our constitutional future we keep trading around the UK. And everything we are about is about making that easier, not harder.’

A Scottish Conservative spokesman later said Miss Sturgeon had ‘ignored’ the realities leaving the UK would cause.