I am grateful for the opportunity to raise an important issue on behalf of many of my constituents. I should inform the House that Ravenhead Glass, which went out of business three weeks ago, has a long history in St. Helens—it has had a factory there for more than 150 years. In its heyday, it employed more than 5,000 people, but when it closed two weeks ago, it employed 200.

Many of those people, after 30 years' service, would normally have expected gold watches, enhanced redundancy payments or even good pensions. Most of the staff are aged over 50 and, as I have said, most have more than 30 years' service with the company. Three weeks ago they were made redundant and were told that they would receive only statutory redundancy pay, and that they would have their pensions redundancy by about 20 per cent., as the pension scheme contained a £5 million black hole.

These workers are not numbers; they are people. An example is Mr. Dave Rotherham, who contacted me recently. He had worked in the plant for 30 years, and his father had worked there for 50 years. His life has been turned upside down in recent weeks. He has lost his job, he has no enhanced redundancy payments, and he faces a family crisis and a bleak future. That is after 30 years' hard work for the same company.

The Ravenhead company is owned by a parent company, Durabor, which is owned by the Belgian regional government. Ravenhead went into administration in November 1999. It had massive debts and an undervalued pension scheme. The Ravenhead plant at St. Helens is one of only two glass manufacturing plants in the UK. The other is in Chesterfield and is also, by coincidence, in receivership. It is quite possible, therefore, that within a few weeks Britain will have no glassware industry at all. That will be the end of another British industry. It will be lost for ever, thanks to the current problems that the industry is experiencing.

The Department of Trade and Industry has been very helpful with the recent problems that we have had, and I would like to pay tribute to Ministers and officials for all the help that they have given me. From day one, when we were trying to find a new buyer, they gave us every assistance with advice, and financial and moral support. I cannot criticise the effort made by the Department, and I would like my hon. Friend the Minister to pass on my thanks to his staff, especially those in the north-west office, for all their help.

The workers have now lost their jobs—some after 30 years—and they want to know why. I am having great difficulty understanding why the company got itself into such a mess. Many of the workers believe that responsibility lies with the manager lent of the company. They want to know why the factory closed, why their pension scheme was so underfunded, and why Durabor forced the St. Helens factory to sell glass at well below cost price. Those people believe that forcing the company to do that led to the closure of the factory in St. Helens. A large stock of surplus glass in the Ravenhead factory warehouses is now up for purchase as a result of the closure. Rumour has it that Durabor is in open discussion with a company based in America called Libby's, which is about to buy up those stocks. If it does so, it will buy them at very low cost, and be able to sell them at a fat profit. The workers at the plant believe that a deal has been struck between the American company and Durabor to gobble up the whole of the British and Belgian markets.

Following the closure of Ravenhead in St. Helens and Delmar in Chesterfield, there will be no glass producers in Britain. If the American giant were to take over the company, it would have complete control of the Belgian and UK markets. It would then be able to increase prices over a period of time and have a very healthy business. I believe that there is a case for investigating whether any anti-competitive practices have been carried out by that company, and I would welcome any such investigation.

My constituents who worked at Ravenhead have been told that there is a £5 million gap in their pension fund. Many of them worked there for 30 or more years. The company took a contributions holiday back in 1998. When the scheme was revalued in 1999, a deficit was found. It was agreed that the company would increase the payments over a number of years to make good that shortfall. Obviously, that will no longer happen now that the company has gone out of business, and the company pensioners have been left with a pension scheme that does not meet the requirements needed to maintain their pension levels. They want to know why the trustees and the company decided to take a contributions holiday and why the scheme went into deficit. I would welcome an investigation into pensions schemes. I know that that is the responsibility of the Treasury, but I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will be able to contact Treasury colleagues about it.

There should be an investigation into the closure of the plant and into whether anti-competitive practices have gone on. We need an investigation into the relationship between Libby's and Durabor, as I believe that there is strong evidence that they have been working collectively for many months to destroy the competition in Britain and Belgium and to give themselves a dominant position in the market for years to come.

There is also a case for the Government to consider legislation on employment rights and pensions. It is totally unacceptable for workers who have given such loyal service to a company over many years to be treated in such a shabby way. British workers need to have better employment and pension protection and I hope that the Government will look at that in some detail.

I also want the Government to consider legislation on a company's ability to take a contributions holiday, and I wish to make some suggestions. No pension scheme, and no trustee of a scheme, should be allowed to take a contributions holiday unless the scheme has built up a buffer zone, which could be used if the scheme underperformed. There is a strong case for removing the employer from the pension scheme altogether. That would have made a major difference to the employees' scheme at Ravenhead. There is also a strong case for requiring pension schemes to be revalued every year, rather than every four years. Recently, we have seen how the market can move rapidly and revaluing pension schemes every four years is unacceptable. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will discuss with his colleagues how we can investigate those issues and make sure that people are held accountable for their actions. The very least my constituents expect is that a full investigation will be held into the allegations that they have made, which I have restated today.

Durabor, the Belgian parent company, is not a small operation; its Majority shareholder is the Belgian regional government. That regional government may not have a legal responsibility to the employees at Ravenhead, but there is a strong moral case that they should make some compensation payments to my constituents.

I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to make representations on behalf of the workers of Ravenhead to the Belgian regional government, who must stand by their ex-employees and accept responsibility. They cannot walk away, leaving people who have worked in the company for more than 30 years with minimum statutory redundancy pay and an undervalued pension scheme. I would welcome any help and assistance on those issues.

The Labour Government have done a lot in the past few years to strengthen pensions and employee regulations, but the case that I have outlined tonight demonstrates that we have a lot more to do.