Dunbartonshire -based BPF member Hardie Polymers met with local MP, Jo Swinson, Nick Clegg’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, on Friday 29th June, to discuss the strategic future of the UK plastics industry. Joining Fergus Hardie, the Company’s Managing Director, was Philip Law, BPF’s Public and Industrial Affairs Director.
The meeting was based on the BPF’s recently published Discussion document, ‘The UK Plastics Industry: A Strategic Manufacturing Sector’. It was the second time that Jo had visited the company and the wide – ranging discussion covered the identity of the plastics industry, global export opportunities, and the manpower and training needs of the sector.
‘Jo has been a prominent critic of over-packaging and we had an opportunity to make some points about the futility of bag taxes and the tendency of the media to focus on quite narrow issues, take one side of a story and discolour the image of plastics as a whole’, said Fergus Hardie.
Philip Law added ‘Jo is obviously a rising star in the Coalition and has been particularly close to Vince Cable. She was keen to hear about the markets with most export potential and in return she articulated the government’s strategy of encouraging the development of clusters around academic centres of excellence in a bid to ‘catapult’ UK firms into overseas markets’.
ENDS
For further information contact either:
Philip Law, BPF Public & Industrial Affairs Director, on 0207 457 5000 or [email protected]
Fergus Hardie, Hardie Polymers , on 0141 942 3330 or [email protected]
Photograph : Location-Hardie Polymers offices, Glasgow. Left to right : Philip Law, Jo Swinson, Fegus Hardie
Notes for editors:
British Plastics Federation (BPF) is the UK trade association for the plastics industry – representing the whole supply chain including polymer producers, distributors, additives suppliers, machinery manufacturers, processors and recyclers.