A UNION leader last night said he was terrified for the future of UK manufacturing as he accused British American Tobacco (BAT) of putting profits before jobs.

Gerry Hunter, North-East regional officer for trade union Amicus, launched the attack after the tobacco company announced it was moving a quarter of its British production to the Far East.

BAT has already closed its factories in Spennymoor and Peterlee, both County Durham, and last year dealt a devastating blow to Darlington by closing the Rothmans factory with the loss of nearly 500 jobs.

About 130 workers moved to BAT's remaining British plant, in Southampton, mostly on temporary contracts that ran out in April.

There are only 15 former Darlington workers still on permanent contracts at Southampton after moving there last year, and they are facing months of uncertainty as the company carries out a review of its business.

BAT announced yesterday that it planned to transfer the production of 6.2 billion cigarettes from Southampton to factories in Korea and Singapore from November, raising fears of hundreds of job losses.

A spokeswoman said: "Some production of brands such as Benson and Hedges, Pall Mall and Dunhill will go to the Far East.

"There has been a lot of speculation about job losses, but we are now conducting a review to look at the implications of the switch in production for the business.

"It is a serious and significant loss of volume for the Southampton factory.

"We have to ask ourselves two questions - first, can we attract any other volume from elsewhere and, if not, if we can continue to run the business."

The Southampton factory employs about 660 in manufacturing, more than half of BAT's UK workforce of about 1,200.

Amicus has said it will fight any compulsory redundancies.

Mr Hunter, who negotiated with BAT when it was making redundancies in Darlington, said: "The offshoring of British jobs is outrageous, particularly within a company that is making £1.7bn profits.

"Initially, 480 jobs went at Spennymoor, then 68 at Peterlee and then 460 at Darlington last year.

"The North-East has lost out hands-down on all of those.

"I am terrified for the future of manufacturing because these companies are offshoring not because of a downturn, but simply because they want bigger and bigger profits all the time by using cheap labour in the Far East."

National officer Iain MacLean said of Southampton: "This is a huge kick in the teeth for BAT's loyal workers and a devastating blow for the local economy."