My week has been dominated by the proposed closure of the
Kimberly-Clark factory in Barton-upon-Humber and the hundreds of redundancies
that will result. No amount of words from me or anyone else will make those
affected feel any better.
I myself was made redundant many years ago when the
Richardson & Coppin print factory in Ladysmith Road, of which many older
readers will remember, closed and moved its operations to Loughborough. So it’s
not a new phenomenon that big companies rationalise their activities. In the
case of Kimberly-Clark they are pulling out of, not just the production of
their ‘Huggies’ nappies but of their sales operation in Europe, except for some
rather strange reason Italy.
Westminster this week
I took part in a debate about the future of Glenfield Children’s Heart Surgery
Unit in Leicester and next week there will be another focussing on the Leeds
unit. It is the Leeds unit that has featured more in the local media but I have
also been approached by constituents whose children or grandchildren have
received life-saving treatment at Glenfield.
I have to say that I wasn’t encouraged by the junior Health
minister’s reply to the debate though it was to be fair making the case that
many of the health professionals put forward and as she said it is now possible
to operate on young babies with a heart the size of a walnut and this sort of
expertise can only be made available in a limited number of larger units.
However this was countered by a masterly summing up by my colleague Edward
Garnier who really put the minister on the spot and if and when the final
decision is taken ministers, if they do not reprieve at least some of the
centres proposed for closure are going to have a very hard time.
