“IT is a scandal that the industrial base of an area which has a proud record in engineering is being destroyed to such an extent,” the MP for the Glasgow East End district of Springburn told the Commons. 

“If we do not train young apprentices, we shall destroy the seed corn.”

This wasn’t Paul Sweeney, the current MP, speaking of the recent plans to close the St Rollox railway works. It was the late Michael Martin — who would later become the Commons Speaker — speaking 33 years ago, when the workforce at the site was being reduced from 1,000 to fewer than 200.

But the circumstances — and the arguments — are remarkably similar. Back then, transport minister David Mitchell justified the decision on the basis that British Rail’s “requirement for rolling stock maintenance is declining sharply,” thanks to “modernisation and new rolling stock.”

Now the German owner of the site, Gemini Rail Group, says the withdrawal of ScotRail’s older fleet — the same trains that in 1986 were state of the art, and the justification for reducing the workforce — means the site will no longer be economically viable.

Amid pressure from Scottish Labour to take the site back into public ownership, the SNP government at Holyrood has trumpeted the idea of turning St Rollox into a “hub” for “heavy rail and heavy engineering work in the future.” 

The site has potential for many more jobs than the 160 workers currently on the books, so what’s not to like?

The plan is not dissimilar to Economy Secretary Derek Mackay’s promise to “transform” the Michelin tyre factory in Dundee into “a key location for new economic and employment opportunities in manufacturing, remanufacturing, recycling and low-carbon transport.”

This approach allows ministers to act like they’re doing something big — and take the credit if a project succeeds. But conveniently, it also allows them to blame the market and pass the buck if it doesn’t turn out so well. And the fragmentation of the workforce means that when they inevitably come, job losses will attract less attention and less resistance.

A jobs revival was also promised in that Commons debate back in 1986. In response to Martin raising the high unemployment rate in Springburn, Tory transport minister Mitchell told the Commons that British Rail Engineering Limited was “making available £1 million at Springburn,” with additional funds available from the Scottish Development Agency and direct from the government.

So what does the labour market in Springburn look like now? Just 59 per cent of 16 to 64-year-olds in Glasgow North East, the equivalent Westminster constituency, are economically active — compared with 78 per cent across Scotland, and 79 per cent across Britain. 

Those facing redundancy, let alone on the dole queues, are likely to be sceptical of pie in the sky promises of a new renaissance.

Indeed, a growing problem is private capital sucking up public funding before scarpering. Last autumn the Sunday Mail reported that Michelin was set to walk away from Dundee having received £8m worth of funding from the Scottish government. 

Factory manager John Reid is on the record saying the administration in Edinburgh has handed Michelin “four or five times” more funding than any other government in Europe has.

Of course, it’s not the only way. At First Minister’s Questions this week, Richard Leonard called on Nicola Sturgeon to “step in and take the railway works into public control.” 

This would not only give the workforce far more security, but — if there was the will for it — allow an expansion of the site and its functions.

One root of St Rollox’s current troubles is, as RMT general secretary Mick Cash has identified, the impact of “design, build and maintain” contracts when new rolling stock is commissioned by private manufacturers. 

The ability for established railway works to gain contracts for repairs and overhaul is increasingly diminished.

But if the nationalisation of St Rollox was combined with public ownership of the rest of the railways, as Labour proposes, Britain could get back to an integrated rolling stock strategy which supports British jobs — as well as saving money for taxpayers and passengers.

This week’s FMQs was a rare example of a meaningful exchange at Holyrood, with the status quo being pitched against an alternative vision that is genuinely distinct, rather than the usual proposals for minor tinkering.

It called to mind the Scottish Labour leader’s invocation of Mick McGahey, the late Communist miners’ leader, in the debate on St Rollox last week. 

McGahey, Leonard recalled, had seen the Scottish Parliament’s potential in it involving “the people of a country in the operation of power at every possible level.”

Sadly, that remains a potential — rather than a reality. Redistribution of power will require a Scottish government prepared to intervene not just to save capital from the brink, but to redesign the labour market and industry. 

If the SNP is capable of facing up to this challenge, it has yet to show it.