Taking on the bank bigwigs to get much-needed answers

ALL anyone involved with the unsavory demise of the SeaDragon project has ever wanted is answers.

An explanation as to why the potential for 1,000 jobs and £300m investment was snatched away from the North-East at a time when such opportunities have never been so badly needed.

Some reasons have been given as to how this oil and gas platform is now being built from scratch in the Far East, despite the fact it was already a quarter complete on Teesside, and despite it costing at least £110m more to do so.

But more than five months after the contract was unexpectedly pulled by the project’s commissioning company SeaDragon, the explanations as to why it happened have still not been given.

Despite widespread public anger, Lloyds Banking Group – which pulled the plug on the rig being built in the North- East, deeming it too risky an investment – and the Government, which seemingly stood back and watched as the partnationalised bank opted to finance jobs and investment in Singapore ahead of the UK, have said nothing.

Having covered the Sea- Dragon story for The Northern Echo from the day the contract was awarded in November 2006, through to the day a replacement contract was given to the Jurong Shipyard last month, I have seen the impact the whole sorry situation has had firsthand.

I witnessed the pride of David Eason, chief executive of the Tees Alliance Group (TAG), when he announced the consortium had won the contract to build the rig – the biggest project of its type to be built in the UK for more than a generation – at the mothballed Haverton Hill shipyard.

Two years later, I saw his bewilderment and disbelief as he was told the work TAG had started could not be completed, and the quality of his work was brought into question.

I watched as Jon Dale, chairman of Darlington’s Cleveland Bridge, a TAG member, recruited South Shields firm McNulty Offshore to form Tyne Tees Rigs to put together a bid to keep the SeaDragon project in the North-East.

He and his team worked night and day for two weeks to put a water-tight case together.

I spoke to him only minutes after the bid was refused, and was left in no doubt as to what it meant to him, his team and his company’s workers.

I sensed his sheer anger at finding out in an email – mistakenly sent to him by Sea- Dragon’s executive chairman John Darlington, outlining the case for refusal – that his efforts to protect North-East jobs and investment were about to come to nothing.

I also spoke to several of the 200 workers made redundant when SeaDragon pulled the contract.

One told me at the time: “I know no one’s job is safe these days, but I was certain mine was safer than most. I never saw this coming – why would you?”

And that worker’s question has still not been answered.

It is high time people – namely our Government and Lloyds Banking Group, of which we own 43 per cent – are held accountable for their actions.

Despite the best efforts of The Northern Echo to get answers, we have been given a “no comment” on each occasion.

Three weeks ago, we posed the nine questions we believed remained outstanding, and called on the Government and Lloyds to respond.

We were inundated with support from MPs, trade unions, consumer groups and our readers – yet still we heard nothing from the Government or Lloyds.

Only days after we posed those questions, I was contacted by Greg Clark, a member of the Shadow Cabinet and also Shadow Minister for Teesside, who felt so strongly about our cause that he wrote to Business Secretary Lord Mandelson, asking for a meeting for him to ask our questions.

Mr Clark, who holds a prominent political role as Shadow Energy Secretary, has pledged to push for a meeting until he is granted one. As we have done since January, he is still waiting for a reply.

I began to think what more could be done to tackle Lloyds.

The fact it is almost half taxpayer-owned seems to entitle the taxpayer to very little in the way of getting answers to their questions.

So my attention turned to their £4bn shares issue, which depending on uptake, could see the Government buying up enough shares for the bank to be 77 per cent owned by you and me.

Although the bank’s press office has consistently declined my requests with “no comment”, I realised that if I was to become a shareholder, my questions would not be so easy to avoid.

As a shareholder, I would have a right to have my questions about the bank answered.

Giving more money to this bank was the last thing I wanted to do, so I decided to buy the minimum amount that would qualify me to attend the Lloyds annual meeting, where I could put my questions to a panel that would include bank executives and Treasury representatives.

I discovered that was one single share, which on the day in question, would cost me £1.01. The fact I wanted a solitary stake was clearly quite bemusing – “You want one? As in the number one, one on its own?” asked the broker – but my only goal was to become a shareholder, to be entitled to ask questions, not to furnish them with yet more money.

I am now the owner of one Lloyds Banking Group share, and am entitled and fully prepared to attend the bank’s annual meeting in Glasgow on June 5.

The probability is that most of my fellow shareholders, who will attend from around the UK and most likely from across the world, will be unaware of the SeaDragon situation – I will take great delight in enlightening them.

The fact that a bank bailed out by British taxpayers can turn its back on British jobs and British investment, yet can refuse to give any reasons as to why, cannot be right.

Hopefully, when put on the spot at the meeting, the banking bigwigs behind this decision will end the months of silence and provide some explanation.

For the people who worked so hard to secure this work for the region; for those people who put everything into preparing a salvage bid; for the skilled workers who created the quarter of the rig already built but who have now lost their jobs; and for the people of this country who believe that Lloyds should repay some of the huge debt it owes the taxpayer, it seems the very least they can do.