Bombardier

Lord Rogan Excerpts

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rogan (UUP)]

My Lords, I also welcome the Minister’s Statement, in which he outlined the extent of the contact that had taken place between the UK and Canadian Governments. It cannot be stated too often that this company is absolutely essential to the Northern Ireland economy and that the threat to Bombardier could have simply devastating consequences for this part of the United Kingdom. It is essential that concerted efforts continue to be made to ensure that Bombardier’s future in Belfast building wings for the C Series aircraft is secured. I trust that the Boeing directors will note the Minister’s words when he stated that,

“we consider this action by Boeing to be totally unjustified, unwarranted and incompatible with the conduct we would expect of a company with a long-term business relationship with the United Kingdom”.

The Government have the complete support of the Ulster Unionist Party in these endeavours to resolve this dispute.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I thank the noble Lord for his unconditional support for our approach. He is absolutely right that the Bombardier factory and all the attached supply-chain jobs are very important to Northern Ireland. I hope I have been able to make that clear to the House; others have said the same. For example, the £530 million put into the C Series facility in Belfast represented Northern Ireland’s largest ever inward investment, and this must be protected. The C Series is a fantastic plane from what I have understood in the last few hours, and a great product. We must protect the jobs and ensure that the factory and Bombardier continue there. As an aside, I would say that Bombardier is of course very active in Derby. It is obviously a different sector, but it is making carriages for the East Anglian franchise, and I think that it has won a contract with South West Trains. It will be constructing trains for Crossrail, I hope, and there is HS2. That side is also important, although I realise we are talking about Northern Ireland in this Statement.