AN all party group of MPs has given Southampton workers a boost as they fight to save their factory.

Remploy bosses stunned union officials when they announced almost half its 83 sites are to close or be merged under moves to transfer work from loss-making factories into placing disabled people into mainstream jobs.

Now an MPs inquiry has called on management to stop the closure programme and develop a new plan for the 43 threatened factories.

Their report said: "We recommend that Remploy management stop its closure programme and develop a properly consulted, carefully thought out business plan based on a thriving suite of factories across the UK."

Remploy currently operates two businesses in Southampton, a factory based at West Quay Road which undertakes electronics assembly and employs 40 people and a satellite operation based in Chandler's Ford, which is an electrical goods recycling business.

Remploy is planning to close the recycling business, which employs five disabled people and which loses more than £200,000 a year Bosses pledged that no disabled person would be made compulsorily redundant and said anyone wishing to continue working would be able to do so. The MPs report comes amid a 90-day consultation on the closure proposals, started last month.

Workers are already gearing up for possible strike action with a official ballot due to take place in September.

Phil Davies, leader of the Remploy consortium of trade unions, said: "This report from the MPs demanding that the management stop the closure progamme is a big boost to the campaign to save these factories."

The unions are writing to more than 50,000 local councillors, school governors, health trusts, police and other public sector buyers of goods and services asking them to pledge work to Remploy without going out to tender as allowed under an EU directive.