THE controversial closure of Port Glasgow Jobcentre is going ahead.

UK Government officials confirmed the news yesterday, with the move condemned by Inverclyde MP Ronnie Cowan and his SNP colleague Stuart McMillan MSP.

The plan to shut a number of jobcentres, including Port Glasgow, was announced in January by minister for employment, Damien Hinds MP, who said the government wanted to re-locate the Scarlow Street office to Greenock’s Dalrymple Street centre.

Mr Cowan criticised the proposal in the House of Commons and asked written parliamentary questions about it.

He said today: “The closure is deeply disappointing. My initial thoughts are with the staff members who will lose their jobs. 

“Alongside this, I am concerned that my constituents who receive welfare support will be adversely affected by these cuts to services. The closure is purely a cost saving exercise for the UK Government, and has little thought on the impact it will have on some of the most vulnerable people in Inverclyde.

“The SNP will be looking to ask questions of the minister on the closures, and what this means for Scotland.”

Mr McMillan says he is ‘bitterly disappointed’ the closure is going ahead.

He said: “Yet again the most vulnerable people in our society are being targeted to save money.

“I always thought that jobcentres were there to help people back into work. Removing them seems very much like a step in the wrong direction.

“All care and compassion seems to have been taken out of the UK system at present by a Conservative government driven more by ideology that doing what is right and fair.”