The Ministry of Defence yesterday placed the bulk of a £6.6m order for special protective clothing for the armed forces with four Scottish factories staffed by disabled workers.

The Ministry of Defence yesterday placed the bulk of a £6.6m order for special protective clothing for the armed forces with four Scottish factories staffed by disabled workers.

All but 1620 of the 44,000 "Noddy suits", designed to keep the wearers safe from nerve gas and lethal germs on the battlefield, are to be made in Remploy's Dundee, Clydebank, Cowdenbeath and Stirling plants.

A small contract for the carbon-lined chemical and biological warfare suits has also been placed with the company's Cumbrian factory at Cleaton Moor. The order comes as a welcome boost to Remploy, as it faces a spate of factory closures and up to 1600 redundancies because of a shortage of business.

Remploy's management team announced last year that 43 of its 83 UK facilities would close, including small production plants at Hillington, Wishaw and Aberdeen.

In Scotland, all but Hillington were later reprieved after the trades unions involved threatened strike action and the Department for Work and Pensions came up with a £555m rescue package.

The government-controlled company still plans to shut or merge 28 plants but has agreed that there will be no compulsory redundancies.