Hardtodigest

I see an “action group” has been formed to “explore options for the future “of the Mcvitie’s factory in Glasgow which its owners consider surplus to requirements (your report, 19 May) – a bit like sending for the fire brigade after the house has burned down. In a recent letter it was suggested the closure stemmed from concerns over support for the independence movement but I think it’s a bit more complex than that.

For decades now there has been a pattern of a Scottishowned and managed concern being bought by one in England; the head office goes right away but the production facilities continue north of the Border until the new owners rationalise their operations onto their English site. Inrecentyearsanotherdimension has been added. A foreign buyer appears offering attractive sums of cash for the British concern and in due course production is moved abroad to where labour is cheaper and employment regulations are more lenient or more laxly enforced. Mcvitie’s, after being subsumed into United Biscuits, is now owned by Pladis which is, I believe, Turkish owned.

Westminster governments don’t seem to have taken any steps to discourage this process, which is understandable as the City, on which it seems we all depend, is overwhelmingly interested now not in financing the running of UK business but in deals producing an immediate return. Could an independent Scottish Government do anything to remedy this situation? In theory, possibly, but it would be very difficult.

In the Mcvitie’s case, Scottish Enterprise apparently advanced funds for modernisation including new products – and, unfortunately, a fat lot of good that has done.