Military Aviation Industry

Andrew Griffiths Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mark Menzies]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. We cannot be totally reliant on exports, because, if the RAF buys and uses something, that is a more powerful pitch than any sales brochure, so we have to ensure that the UK armed forces continue to place significant orders for UK military aircraft. I agree that exports are not the only solution, but, in a tough economic climate, we need to invest a considerable amount of energy in securing such exports.

I say to the Minister, please let us not be shy about getting behind BAE Systems when securing exports. The French are not shy, the Americans wheel out Barack Obama and the Russians wheel out Vladimir Putin. So, let us leave no stone unturned and use every weapon in our armoury to ensure that the United Kingdom is out there putting forward what I passionately believe to be a world-class product built by a world-class work force, securing defence orders for this country and vast amounts of foreign currency potential. I call upon the Minister to support me in that.

We have 6,500 people working at Warton and about 5,000 at Samlesbury, but it is not just about numbers—it is about the quality of those jobs. Two hundred apprentices are currently going through BAE Systems military aircraft division.

[Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a huge impact in terms of knowledge and skills that are transferable throughout manufacturing as a result of the aerospace industry, that many of the techniques and technological advances that are developed feed through into manufacturing in the UK generally, and that having a thriving, successful aerospace industry will have a huge impact on British manufacturing?

[Mark Menzies]

My hon. Friend makes a very valid point. He is on the record as speaking up for jobs and skills in this country.

A layman could be accused of thinking of the jobs at Warton as being about metal-bashing and nuts and bolts, but far from it. We are talking about people who are at the cutting edge of design and computer technology—the sorts of things that I, as a mere Member of Parliament, struggle to get my head around. They are absolute world leaders in their field, and they are our people—Lancashire people, on the whole. They have spent their whole lives honing their skills at Warton—they were not invented: they were grown. We need to recognise the contribution that those skills make to the economy, as well as their transferable nature and the fact that many component manufacturers can look to the military aircraft division and take some of the lessons from that sector to use in their own sectors.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my neighbour, the hon. Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies), on securing the debate. I reiterate his point that I am sure your fellow Deputy Speakers would have loved to speak in the debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. Indeed, I am sure that you would have been keen to take part as well, given the constituency interest.

Aerospace is an industry that touches every part of the UK economy, including the south-west, but nowhere more than the north-west. We in the north-west are extremely concerned about the job losses that will almost definitely occur there in the coming months, particularly at Samlesbury and Warton. We know that 149 jobs are likely to go at the former and 298 at the latter. Having spoken to both management and the unions, we are aware of the reduction in work on Airbus components at Samlesbury. I am sure that that matter also affects your constituents at Filton, Madam Deputy Speaker. We know about the valuable work on the Tornado, the Harrier and the Hawk that has taken place at Warton in the past. I will be honest in saying that the announcements about reductions in the Tornado and Harrier fleets were made before the general election, but we are also concerned about future plans. I shall touch on that later.

The work force have been given about 90 days to be consulted by the management on jobs. Hundreds of jobs were lost in the industry last year, including at the Warton and Samlesbury plants. We hoped that there would then be a tailing-off of job losses, and I am angry that they are continuing and are likely to continue further as a result of the Government’s strategic defence review.

We must attempt to minimise job losses where possible. I do not want anybody from either plant to be made compulsorily redundant. However, I understand that they just about scraped through last year with voluntary redundancies, so it will be much more difficult this year. Many workers there who are friends of mine, and their families, are concerned about their economic future and their careers, having spent decades at the two plants that are going under.

It is particularly heartbreaking that many skilled manufacturing jobs have gone abroad over the past five decades, especially with the growth of the European Community, now the European Union, and globalisation. The north-west is proud that we still have a much higher percentage of the population engaged in manufacturing than elsewhere, and in the Preston and central Lancashire area the percentage is the highest in the country. That is under threat now.

We have been making aircraft in the Preston area for more than 100 years, and aircraft that fought in both world wars were built in and around my constituency. They used to be built to fight against countries such as Germany. We now build aircraft in co-operation with Germany. Europe has been at peace for decades and we want that to continue. Indeed, we want peace on a global scale, but while there is no guarantee of that, defence equipment will always be needed, and it must be manufactured. This country is particularly good at that and has an extremely high technological base.

I trained as an electronics engineer and computer scientist. I worked in those jobs in my professional life in both the public and the private sectors before entering politics. As the hon. Member for Fylde said, engineering is not about metal-bashing. Of course, many skills, including metal-bashing, have survived for generations, but many of the skills that are coming on stream are highly technical and advanced, particularly in computer-aided design, and we are the envy of the world in many areas of manufacturing. We lead the world in stealth technology—I have seen the world-beating stealth technology manufactured at Warton—and are ahead of the Americans, the Israelis and the French. The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the unmanned vehicles that we are developing.

We have already lost many manufacturing industries to countries such as Germany, Japan and China, particularly in the consumer electronics field, but one area in which we excel is the manufacture of defence equipment. We need that to continue, which is why we should do everything in our power to protect jobs and the high-tech industries such as those in the north-west.

[Andrew Griffiths]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the loss of manufacturing jobs overseas. Does he agree that in 13 years under the previous Government, there was an unprecedented collapse in manufacturing in this country, when it declined three times faster than under Margaret Thatcher?

[Mark Hendrick]

I accept that there has been a loss of jobs in manufacturing, but that trend has continued since the 1960s under Governments of both persuasions. I say that as an engineer rather than as a politician. As technology advances, computers can do many jobs that humans used to do, and a section of an aircraft that used to be made of 100 parts can now be made of two or three. I would not try to be party political on manufacturing. Nobody did more to defend jobs than the previous Labour Government. Every contract that could be given to British Aerospace, which is now called BAE Systems, was given to it, and order books were full. We were looking forward to decades of further production at the company, so we will not take any lessons from the Conservatives.