LISA Cameron has been slammed for her “deafening” silence on the Foreign Office quitting her constituency – as it was revealed she had previously begged Boris Johnson to keep jobs in the town.
The SNP defector has not commented publicly on plans to axe the Foreign Office’s East Kilbride base in South Lanarkshire – which would see 1000 jobs pour out of the town to Glasgow.
It could see cash drain out of the town, with UK Government analysis suggesting the office is worth £30 million per year to the local economy.
The site was previously threatened when the Tories controversially axed the Department for International Development (DfID), merging it with the Foreign Office.
And it has now emerged that Cameron, who joined the Conservatives in October, pleaded with the UK Government to keep jobs in the town amid concerns about the merger.
In 2020, she told the BBC: “Boris Johnson must commit to protecting jobs in DfID’s East Kilbride base – it is one of Whitehall’s biggest footprints in Scotland and its work highly thought-of worldwide.
“The PM must deliver a public guarantee that these jobs are secure and that they will stay in East Kilbride. I will be writing to him requesting urgent reassurance for local DfID staff”.
At time of going to print, the MP has remained silent on the issue despite approaches from the Sunday National.
East Kilbride MSP Collette Stevenson was mocked by Tories when she raised the issue in Parliament last week.
The SNP politician has written to her Westminster counterpart to demand she speaks out on the issue and has raised similar concerns with the Tory Central Scotland MSP Graham Simpson (above) and Scottish Secretary Alister Jack.
Stevenson told the Sunday National: “It’s been a week now since the UK Government announced their plans to relocate over 1000 [Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO)] jobs from East Kilbride to Glasgow and the silence from the town’s Tory MP is deafening.
“I have written to both Graham Simpson MSP and Lisa Cameron MP to ask if they still support the FCDO Headquarters staying in the town and have not had the courtesy of a response. That simply isn’t good enough, and people need to know where they stand on this issue.
“When plans were announced to merge the Department for International Development and the Foreign Office a number of years ago, there was a collective, cross-party effort to keep jobs in the town.
“When I raised this issue at First Minister’s Questions, the Tories laughed during the answer – their contempt for local workers is appalling.”
A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “FCDO is relocating to a modern building in Glasgow as part of its levelling-up commitment to deliver a total presence in Scotland of 1500 roles at our joint HQ.”
It is understood the 1700 HMRC employees based in East Kilbride will move to Abercrombie House and there are no planned redundancies as a result of the Foreign Office’s move to Glasgow.
Simpson did not respond to a request for comment.
