A GLASGOW MSP has 'pleaded' with the first minister to take the lead in a bid to save jobs at the under-threat McVitie's factory.

Speaking on BBC's Good Morning Scotland today, Labour MSP Paul Sweeney called for Nicola Sturgeon to lead the fight to save jobs at the Tollcross plant. He said: "We're pleading with the first minister to take the lead on this and hopefully that will eventually change minds."

It comes after a petition launched by workers at the factory has been signed over 50,000 times.

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The petition was launched just over two weeks ago to fight the proposed closure of the Tollcross plant which was been in the area for more than a century.

Mr Sweeney also claimed that McVitie's owners pladis have been overseeing 'managed decline' at the plant. He said: "What we've seen is the company has effectively introduced managed decline in Tollcross over a number of years.

"They've not particularly engaged in studying what sort of investment could be brought in, in terms of new production lines, making the site more efficient and potentially also moving to a new greenfield site somewhere else in the city region.

Glasgow Times:

"We've seen the movement of production out of Tollcross to other sites in the UK. We want to study why that's happened and what could the Scottish Government do in terms of support? It's an account managed company by Scottish Enterprise so what sort of investment is needed to make it world class, to make it competitive and also looking at the amount of investment that's already gone into the site to support product development?

"We think there's significant opportunity to talk to the company and bring that sort of leverage to change their calculations.

Mr Sweeney claimed McVitie's owners, pladis, had not engaged in conversations about any potential solutions to maintain the factory's future. He added: "Bizarrely, they've not really engaged at all before this announcement, they've not discussed it with Scottish Enterprise. They've not said: well this is what we've made in terms of our calculations, this is what we can afford, if you could help us with x,y and z, we could change our decision making.

Glasgow Times: Nicola Sturgeon

"They've not actually had that conversation so we're hoping that they've perhaps not realised what could be on offer from Scottish Enterprise and the Scottish Government in terms of support. We're really trying to explore whether that would change decision making - even up to first minister level."