Funding for billionaire Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos site in central belt of Scotland will help safeguard 500 jobs

Jim Ratcliffe’s chemicals company Ineos has been granted £120m of government funding to help save the UK’s last ethylene plant at Grangemouth, in a deal expected to protect more than 500 jobs.

The investment in the Scottish plant was necessary to preserve a vital part of the country’s chemicals infrastructure, the UK government said. The ethylene produced there was essential for medical-grade plastics production, water treatment and in aerospace and car-building, it added.