Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Davies-Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 17th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hart]

I disagree with the hon. Lady’s comments. She has referred to some process issues. We want to get process and bureaucratic issues out of the way and actually deliver money and prospects, jobs and investments to the places that need them the most. That is what the Government are committed to doing, and we have widespread support from industry in that ambition. As I said in answer to an earlier question, only this morning a further £20 million has been announced for the South Wales industrial cluster. Rather than talk about process, bodies and bureaucracy, we are actually doing real things.

[Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab) [V]]

Can I wish everybody celebrating a happy St Patrick’s Day today?

As my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) has said, the Secretary of State will be more than aware of the complex challenges that coronavirus has presented to the aviation sector and the entire manufacturing supply chain. I hear what the Secretary of State says about Airbus, but sadly, General Electric and British Airways in my constituency of Pontypridd have had to make significant staffing cuts. This sector is crying out for financial support, but its pleas are falling on deaf ears, so will the Secretary of State therefore please update the House on his recent conversations, specifically with the Chancellor, on a sector-specific support package for Wales’s aviation industry?

[Simon Hart]

The Chancellor has, I think, made it very clear how he is supporting every sector that has been so adversely affected by the coronavirus. In fact, I do not think there is a Government in the world who have done as much in financial support either for this sector or, indeed, other sectors or individual families. That has been to the huge credit of the Treasury and all those who have been part of the team that has been able to do that. The Office for Budget Responsibility forecast for economic recovery next year and the year after is a testament to that, and that should benefit this sector just as much as it does everything else.