by Conrad Landin
at Holyrood

NICOLA STURGEON batted away mounting calls to nationalise Scotland’s historic “Caley” rail works today, as workers prepared to receive redundancy notices.

At First Minister’s Questions, Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard challenged the Scottish government over its reluctance to intervene to save the troubled depot, which lies in the Springburn district of Glasgow.

Mr Leonard said: “Time is running out, the government has had six months to take decisive action.

“I raised this with the First Minister back in February. I wrote again to the Transport Secretary just yesterday. These works have existed in Springburn for 160 years. But once it goes, it goes forever.”

Current owners Gemini Rail are ceasing operations at the site after making losses across its operations. However the company has admitted that the St Rollox site, known as the “Caley” as it was built by the Caledonian Railway in 1856, is only responsible for 10 per cent of these losses.

Mr Leonard continued: “The site’s turnover is up, the workers’ skills are indispensable. This is a cornerstone of Scotland’s engineering base — this is a national asset at risk of being lost forever which can be rescued.

“So will you act in the national interest? Will you instruct the Transport Secretary to purchase the site and save these jobs before it is too late?”

Ms Sturgeon said her government had shown a “willingness to intervene” in troubled industries.

“Given our proven determination to save jobs and companies where we can,” she added, “if we are unable to do that in these or other circumstances, perhaps Richard Leonard might conclude that there might be a good reason why that is the case, given the government’s overall responsibilities to the taxpayer.”

Rail union RMT’s general secretary Mick Cash said: “If Nicola Sturgeon is serious about saving industry and jobs and investing in the future of Scotland’s railway, her government would intervene and nationalise the Caley immediately as a precursor to taking ScotRail back into public ownership.

“She says there must be a ‘good reason’ for not doing so, and stresses the need [of] looking after taxpayers’ interests. But anyone with common sense knows that fully integrated public ownership is the only logical way to run the railways in the interests of passengers, workers and taxpayers.

“RMT has made this case consistently since the scandal of privatisation, and it’s time politicians started to listen.”