MR Spry needs to check his memory. The Labour Government shut down the carriage and wagon side of the works in 1964, and they stopped all steam production in 1965.
So where were those 7,000 men working when the plant shut down? It was then a ghost town. The last job was to service the towns buses. The last big build job was moved to Crewe, as they could do the job quicker and cheaper. A lot of the railway stock may be from a foreign firm but built in the UK.
As for hospital builds etc, we are told the total sum for those builds came to around £11.5bn.
The total spent on the NHS IT upgrade, which came to nothing, was £12bn. Jobs for the boys and I won’t go into the PFI contracts, which his grandchildren will be paying for many years from now.
T Reynolds, Wheeler Avenue, Swindon
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