FOUR of the region’s MPs are to meet Business Secretary Lord Mandelson today to ask for his intervention to stop the £300m SeaDragon 1 project being pulled from Teesside.

Minister for the North-East Nick Brown, together with MPs for Teesside – Frank Cook, Dari Taylor and Iain Wright – will discuss ways to persuade Lloyds Banking Group to maintain funding for the £300m oil and gas platform, which would create more than 1,000 jobs.

Cayman Islands-based SeaDragon awarded the contract to the Tees Alliance Group (Tag) two years ago, in what was to be the biggest project of its kind in the UK for more than a generation, but last week said it planned to move work to Singapore.

More than 4,000 tonnes of the platform have been built at the Haverton Hill shipyard in Billingham, near Stockton, which could now face being scrapped, and 200 workers have been told their jobs may be under threat. Tag is considering legal action to retain the contract.

The Northern Echo revealed how SeaDragon’s decision was inspired by Lloyds Banking Group – 43.3 per cent owned by the taxpayer after a £13bn Government bail-out – being unwilling to continue financing the scheme in the North-East.

Mr Cook, MP for Stockton North, Ms Taylor, MP for Stockton South, and Mr Wright, MP for Hartlepool, plan to ask for Lord Mandelson’s intervention.

Mr Cook, who is on Parliamentary duties in the US but will join the meeting via conference call, has been a long-time campaigner for Teesside to be awarded the SeaDragon 1 contract.

He said: “The fundamental issue is that this contract had created significant employment with the prospect of hundreds more in the months ahead and the only reason it is now under threat is because Lloyds – a British bank now backed with billions of pounds from British taxpayers – is unwilling to maintain financial support.

“It cannot be right that the banking system is bailed out but then refuses to provide the funds needed by UK manufacturing at such a critical time for the country. What is the point of supporting banks if they don’t support business?

“I am sure that Lord Mandelson has a close dialogue with the banks and I sincerely hope he will be prepared to use his influence to rescue a project which is of massive importance, not just to the companies and employees directly affected, but the whole Teesside economy.”

Mr Cook, who has written to Lord Mandelson highlighting the importance of the SeaDragon 1 project to the region, said it was in the best interests of all parties to carry out the work in the region.

“Quite properly, Tag has taken legal action to protect their interests in this very difficult situation,” he said.

“This means that effectively one of the oil platform hulls is now under ‘arrest’ in Holland and it is likely to be a long process to resolve the situation – unless SeaDragon recognise that the best way forward is to maintain the contract with Tag and allow the work on the topside structures, which is already well advanced, to continue.”