Minister's visit to lead to further talks

Oct 19 2009 by Sue Scott, Evening Gazette

ENERGY and Climate Change minister Ed Miliband's surprise visit to Teesside on Friday for a private tour of the £250m Ensus bioethanol plant has set the ball rolling for better government engagement with a new generation of process industries that will define Wilton's future.

Stockton MP Dari Taylor, who bounced the minister into a visit by challenging him at the despatch box during the previous parliamentary session, said Mr Miliband had pledged to send his chief scientific advisor to Wilton to learn more.

She said the secretary of state had been “very impressed not just with the scale of Ensus but with the scale of Wilton”. It was Mr Miliband’s first visit to Teesside, despite holding the portfolio for green industries since last October.

The tour, on which the minister was accompanied by Bob Coxan, chairman of the North-east Science and Industry Council - the main charged with overseeing an urgent review of the chemical process sector on Teesside - comes as the heat is turned up Mr Miliband’s colleague at the Department of Business, Lord Mandelson.

A curious exchange of letters between local process chiefs and Mr Mandelson’s department this summer highlighted the lack of any strategy to minimise the impact of a series of closures at Wilton, which have been accelerated by recession.

Mrs Taylor said the visit also helped to reinforce the argument that such large-scale investment in green industries deserved government backing in the form of a stable legislative environment.

“There was a very careful tack here getting the minister to understand the complexity of produing biofuels as well as effectively supporting the production of feed, so there was less land usage, not more.

“Bob Coxan made it clear that this was seen as a risk product and that everyone could also see that the science was delivering and would in incredible terms.”

Mrs Taylor said the government now needed to “stay on the message“ it has created that by ” and stick to the targets for the percentage of renewable fuel in transport by 2020.

“Investment is critically important to us,” she said. “Because Ensus is developging such a incredible reputation it’s creating the right investment territory. But government can also come in.”