Oral Answers to Questions
Douglas Chapman Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Kevin Hollinrake
As one who was in business in 2010, I remember very well what the economy was like in that year, when we took over from Labour: it was not having a good time. [Interruption.] Yes, it is a lot stronger now.
We should bear in mind that while we can choose our own opinions, we cannot choose our own facts, and the facts are that the UK has experienced the third fastest growth in the G7 since 2010—behind only the United States and Canada—and has grown faster than Germany since 2016. It is right that we seek to provide new solutions for businesses; we have to stimulate the supply side of the economy, not least because that is good not only for businesses but for consumers. However, as I said earlier, simply claiming that you are going to scrap business rates without saying how you are going to replace that £25 billion of revenue is highly irresponsible.
Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Kevin Hollinrake)
I am new to this, Mr Speaker.
My Department works closely with other Government Departments and with firms in all sectors of the economy on a range of issues relating to the labour market and skills. That includes increasing the number of apprentices and business investment in skills development, the adoption of T-levels and skills bootcamps, and ensuring that there is better information along with easier routes into careers in a range of sectors.
Douglas Chapman
Last month I held a business roundtable with the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants. It was clear that SMEs were struggling with recruitment, high energy costs, Brexit, and £20 billion worth of late payments.
When it comes to late payments, the prompt payment code does not cut it for SMEs. Will the Minister work with me to introduce legislation to outlaw late payments once and for all and give our SMEs a fighting chance?
Tidal Energy Generation: Ringfenced Funding
Douglas Chapman Excerpts(2 years, 12 months ago)
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Ian Blackford
Absolutely, because it is about that ambition. I hope the Government share our ambition to see this sector generate the level of electricity we believe it can generate. It is about creating the circumstances, by kickstarting the sector with modest Government investment, so that investors come in. We have developed an opportunity for green energy, but let us also think about the opportunities for manufacturing and for a global success story, given the technology that has been developed on these islands.
A proper level of investment will allow existing developments such as the MeyGen project to take off. This project, the world’s largest tidal array, is already exporting significant amounts of electricity, and it has significant capacity to grow. This presents a transformational opportunity for the tidal sector and would once again demonstrate Scotland’s commitment to a green recovery. It could also create thousands of new full-time roles in the Scottish supply chain, helping to achieve its full potential.
We also need to think about the opportunity for our industrial base in Scotland, because the ability to tie in green energy to the powering of data centres, for example, would be an enormous opportunity throughout Scotland, particularly in my area of the highlands and islands. From this ability to generate green energy, we can develop a wider industrial strategy to create the job opportunities and the wealth that we all want to see.
Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP)
My right hon. Friend mentioned supply chains, and 25% of Nova’s supply chain spend is in Shetland, with 98% of its spend being in the UK. If the UK Government are serious about levelling up manufacturing, is this not a golden opportunity for them to get behind it fully, instead of the partial funding we have seen in the last 24 hours?
Ian Blackford
My hon. Friend makes an important point. Actually, 90% of the Nova project’s supply chain comes from the UK, but let me put that into context. For a traditional wind turbine, the UK contribution is some 30%. We lost the opportunity to command the supply chain for the traditional wind industry, and here is an opportunity to make sure we do not make the same mistake again. It is important the Government recognise that.
We have an opportunity to have a green future driven by green jobs, but it will happen only if the opportunity is matched by the ambition of Government investment. In truth, the ask from the industry is modest compared with the support offered to other sectors. The ask is for a £71 million ringfenced fund from the UK Government so the sector can flourish. Although the Government’s offer of £20 million in yesterday’s contracts for difference auction is a step in the right direction, it is not the full stride that the sector deserves.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun has repeatedly stated on the Floor of the House, £71 million is a drop in the ocean compared with the billions that have been offered to the nuclear industry. There was seemingly no problem in finding £1.7 billion to further develop and design the Sizewell nuclear power station. There can be no reason, no logic and no excuse for failing to find the £71 million needed to support this vital industry.
Let us remind ourselves of the potential. This is an industry that can grow to 15% of the UK’s electricity production. If we look at a typical day over the last few weeks, on 16 November nuclear contributed 14.6% of the UK’s electricity. We do not need nuclear in Scotland. We can provide the baseload we need from this clean source of energy. We have the potential to deliver safe green energy and to provide jobs and energy security for a fraction of the cost of nuclear.
There are many other favourable comparisons, too. The predictability and stable power output of tidal stream energy offers additional benefits over other technologies for our future energy supply. For instance, this predictability and stability even compares positively with floating offshore wind, which secured a £24 million ringfenced budget in the draft budget for the fourth-round allocation.
The ask is modest and the picture for investment is clear. If we do not grasp this opportunity, other countries will. Countries including Canada and France have already put in place financial mechanisms to capitalise on tidal energy. Canada has a feed-in tariff equivalent to £300 per megawatt-hour, with many multi-megawatt projects in the pipeline. Nova, based in Leith, has an order to ship 15 turbines to Canada. The Canadians would love to have our technology, and they are enticing companies such as Nova to relocate. The French Government are about to announce a feed-in tariff for tidal energy backed by the EU green deal. Japan and Indonesia are piloting projects and negotiating power purchasing agreements to accelerate tidal energy deployment. We need a domestic market for the industry to grow and thrive. It is a case of use it or lose it. It is that stark, it is that simple. The grim reality is that if the UK Government fall short and short-change this sector, the industry could be lost to other countries that are willing to invest in this technology. We are back to where we were with wind and, in many cases, where we were on oil and gas. We must make sure that we do not lose the full extent of this opportunity. We must make sure that tidal stream cannot be lost to Scotland and the UK—it will certainly not be lost to the world, and we need to make sure that we fully play our part .In case that all sounds familiar, we should remember exactly what happened to the wind industry in the 1980s and 1990s. As I have mentioned, only 30% of the UK supply chain for UK wind is domestically generated.
If we are to reach net-zero and have a just transition, we simply cannot repeat those mistakes of the past. Let us just think of the job opportunities through developing the Scottish, UK and global markets. There are expectations of a global market of 100 GW, an industry that will be worth £126 billion by 2050. We have a choice: lead this emerging green energy sector or sit back and watch our sector-leading companies move wholesale to overseas markets. We can embrace the opportunity for green jobs, for base-load energy and for transitioning to that green energy future. We can lead the world in tidal marine or we can walk away from the opportunity to develop and deepen the sector leadership that has been developed in Scotland and the UK.
It will come as no surprise to Members from across this House that I am not the biggest cheerleader or supporter of the UK Government. Normally when I walk into this Chamber, I do so to firmly oppose those on the Government Benches. Today, though, I walked into this Chamber with a different intention, because this is an issue where we have a chance to work together; here is an area, an industry and an opportunity where we can genuinely work together in our common interests. With a modest amount of support in terms of the overall intervention in energy—of £71 million—the industry can reach its potential and we can all benefit. I hope the Government see it that way too, and I hope that yesterday was only the first step and that there are bigger and better strides to come. I hope the Government are listening, and I very much look forward to the Minister’s response.
Oral Answers to Questions
Douglas Chapman Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)
Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP)
Dr Jamie Wallis (Bridgend) (Con)
Alok Sharma
The issue that my hon. Friend raises is raised with me regularly by businesses, and I completely understand the economic rationale that his constituents have outlined to him. As he will know, a review is taking place, and we will wait to see its results.
Douglas Chapman [V]
The OECD predicts that the UK recession will be the worst in the developed world. The Federation of Small Businesses in Scotland has issued a similarly depressing assessment. In terms of supporting Scottish business, what have been the key asks of the Department from the Secretary of State for Scotland?
Alok Sharma
I have detailed discussions with all Cabinet and ministerial colleagues. I recognise the challenge ahead of us—there is no doubt about that—but we have provided a significant amount of support for the UK economy, and if that had not been put in place a range of independent commentators have made it clear that we would be in a far worse position.
Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme
Douglas Chapman Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
I thank the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) for securing this important debate. I agreed with every single word of his speech. He made an unimpeachable case and the motion should be supported this evening by the Government.
It has been four months since our last debate on this issue. Despite calls from several hon. Members and a petition signed by more than 100,000 people, which I was proud to present to the Prime Minister at No. 10 Downing Street in March with the hon. Gentleman, there has been little progress. I presented the petition alongside campaigners Ken Sullivan, Gareth Hughes, Emlyn Davies and Neville Warren, who have worked tirelessly for justice. I pay tribute to them for their work.
Coalmining shaped the Wales that we know today. Our landscape was reshaped by massive slag heaps and our population shifted en masse from rural Wales to the coalfields, creating vibrant communities, only for them to be ripped apart by the brutality of Thatcherism. The miners strike of 1984 remains vivid in my memory. I was only eight at the time and clearly oblivious to the forces at work. However, the events of that year and their aftermath left a lasting impression on my political thinking. I do not come from a mining family. However, many of my school mates did and I remember to this day the impact of that strike on their wellbeing as that year-long struggle developed.
My father, however, was a trade union shop steward with the electricians union and it was clear to me what side of the fight we were on as a family. This year my father told me, out of the blue, that his grandfather was killed in a mining disaster underground at a pit near Llanelli, which just goes to show that for Wales the coal industry is deeply personal for the entire nation, which is why today’s debate has added significance. I became acutely aware of the power of the British state to destroy Welsh communities and became convinced that the best way to protect my country was the creation of a Welsh state, as opposed to leaving economic powers in the hands of Westminster.
In many respects I come from a frontier community, which borders post-industrial and rural Wales. The Amman valley sits on the anthracite coalfield, which produces the best coal in the world. To our west lies rural Wales, to the north the beautiful wilderness of the Brecon Beacons, to the south the coast and the great industrial urban centres of Swansea and Llanelli, and to the east the Welsh coalfield valleys, which stretch the whole way, more or less, to the English border. The people of the Welsh coalfields are extremely proud people. Community bonds continue to be strong. Our communities continue to be vibrant. What we lack in comparative economic wealth we make up for in social vitality. That is the legacy of the mining industry and mineworkers.
One obvious example for me is the continued importance that the communities I serve place on sports clubs. I am deeply humbled to serve as the honorary vice-president of Ammanford rugby club and Penygroes rugby club. It is a tradition for me to wear the ties of local sporting clubs in this House. Today I am wearing the tie of Ystradgynlais rugby club. Although that is outside my constituency, in Powys, the eagle-eyed will have noticed that the Ystradgynlais crest features a miner’s lamp.
Our debt today for the incredible communities that we are lucky to live in in my part of the world lies with the mineworkers of the past. The conditions that they worked in were terrible, causing long-term health damage for thousands. The least that they deserve for their contribution is dignity, but successive Westminster Governments, both blue and red, have let them down. Twenty-five years of injustice have been inflicted on them, while the miners—the people who produced the wealth in the first place—are receiving as little as £10 a week from the scheme. As we have heard in today’s debate, the average pay-out is only £84. As we know too, at least £4.4 billion has been siphoned off by the Treasury.
Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP)
The time that the Fife miners spent working in the pits has obviously had a greatly detrimental effect on their health. Is it not time that we had an immediate review? Time is of the essence and this is a wrong that we need to put right now.
Jonathan Edwards
My hon. Friend makes a vital point. I suppose my question for the British Government this evening is this. If they are so confident of their case, what do they have to lose by agreeing to an independent review?
The 50-50 surplus arrangement has served the British Government extremely well. As we have heard, it was negotiated during the privatisation of the industry in 1994 by the then Conservative UK Government. There was a review by the Labour Government in 2003, but they decided against any adjustments. The Treasury argued that the guarantee arrangement enables the trustees of the scheme to authorise riskier investment strategies, enabling greater returns for the mineworkers’ pension scheme which are then passed on to pensioners, as well as, of course, to the Treasury. Nobody is disputing the importance of the guarantee or the logic of that argument. The question at hand is whether the British Government should be receiving such enormous sums for their role as the guarantor. Considering the secure nature of the MPS, it seems clear to me that the British Government cannot justify their current claim on the generated surpluses.
I have to tell those on the Treasury Bench that the general feeling out there in mining communities is that this is the latest in a long line of injustices perpetrated by the British Government on the miners, their families and the coalfield communities. About 22,000 people in Wales are affected by this scandal. I was so proud to present the petition calling for an urgent review to Downing Street in March. If the Minister values the hard work of the miners who endured in terrible conditions and their invaluable role in shaping the coalfield communities we live in today, and considering the length of time since the last review, the British Government should accept the motion.
Oral Answers to Questions
Douglas Chapman Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Greg Clark
I recognise the situation my hon. Friend describes; in his rural constituency, this is a big problem. In the spring statement, we announced that the future homes standard would ensure that all new buildings, including those in rural areas, are equipped with low-carbon sources of heat and power by 2025. We also recognise the importance of households that are off the gas grid and have them in mind as we deal with the energy companies in terms of their tariffs.
Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP)
Greg Clark
It is a sad reflection that the job creation that has taken place in Scotland lags behind that in the rest of the UK. I fancy that one reason for that is that Scotland has acquired a reputation for being the highest- tax part of the UK. So I hope the hon. Gentleman would reflect on these causes and advise his colleagues in Holyrood to take a different course.
Future of the Oil and Gas Industry
Douglas Chapman Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I thank the Committee members and the witnesses for helping to reach the well-considered conclusions and recommendations, and I thank the Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), for his push to consider matters of real significance to Scotland. If one sector has been a dominant industry in the political discourse of Scotland in the past 40 or 50 years, it has been oil and gas.
Today’s Scottish oil and gas sector is in a strong position. With up to 20 billion barrels of oil equivalent remaining, there is enough to sustain production for the next 20 years and beyond. Recent discoveries such as the Capercaillie and Achmelvich wells by BP, the huge and significant gas reserves west of Shetland and Clair Ridge, and Nexen’s phase two of developing the Buzzard field, demonstrate the significant untapped potential that this industry holds should we wish to exploit reserves.
Figures published in the last week by the Oil and Gas Authority forecast that 11.9 billion barrels will be extracted by 2050, up almost 50% from the estimated 8 billion barrels predicted just four years ago. That is why the Scottish Government are keen to do everything they can to support the industry and its workforce. In 2016, the Scottish Government launched a £12 million transition training fund to help oil workers retrain and make the most of their transferable skills to forge careers in other sectors. Some 4,000 applications have been approved, with training satisfaction at around 90%.
We have helped the Scottish supply chain to capitalise on an expanding decommissioning market that is forecast to reach £17 billion by 2025. The decommissioning challenge fund has offered grant funding of £3.1 million for projects focused on delivering innovative infrastructure improvements and technological advances in this area. As part of the Aberdeen city region deal, the SNP has committed £90 million over the next decade to support the Oil & Gas Technology Centre.
We are looking at an uplift of over £194 million in the enterprise and energy budget to support entrepreneurship, construction and productivity. That additional funding will contribute to an investment of almost £2.4 billion in enterprise and skills through our enterprise agencies and skills bodies.
The Scottish Government offer an impressive range of support for the industry. As we move forward, I hope the UK can step up to the plate and do more to support the industry as it moves into its next phases of production. However, successive Tory and Labour Governments have continually exploited the oil and gas industry for cash, with little regard for its future sustainability. They have been quite content to rake in a tax take of £350 billion from North sea revenues alone over the past 50 years. The Tories failed to deliver any real fiscal support when the sector was in depression after the oil price dropped. I hope that is a lesson learned. This is an extremely important sector for the future, and we need to support it to allow it to continue, maintain jobs and transition out of oil and gas into other areas.
Deidre Brock
On successive UK Governments’ management of the oil resource, I should say that in recent years Norway’s state-owned oil sector has generated many billions of pounds in Government revenue, while the UK has lost many. Does my hon. Friend agree that that points to a gross mismanagement of this valuable resource over many years by successive UK Governments?
Douglas Chapman
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Norway’s population is very similar to Scotland’s and it has a similar ability make good from the resource it found on its doorstep. It now has the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, yet in Scotland and the UK we have not put anything aside for future generations. That is a huge lost opportunity for the industry and the UK people.
David Duguid
We often hear about the Norwegian sovereign oil fund. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the same fund is investing heavily in the UK market as we prepare to leave the European Union?
Douglas Chapman
That is a fantastic option that Norway has, but in the UK we do not have that wealth fund to decide how we will invest in the future. That makes a bit of a mockery of us. We have had all that wealth; Norway has done a huge amount with theirs, but we have taken ours off our balance sheet and spent it as it came in. We should have put some away for future generations.
Ross Thomson
I accept the hon. Gentleman’s point that there is no sovereign wealth fund in the UK, but the revenues generated from the oil and gas industry in the UK were used at the time to invest in what we enjoy now: hospitals and infrastructure. That money was used for huge investment in infrastructure that is still used today by people across the United Kingdom. In the 1970s, it was used to help lessen the costs of unemployment.
Douglas Chapman
The UK Government has had a spend, spend, spend approach, but as I said, I would like us to put away much more of that wealth for future generations. Perhaps it is a bit late to do that now; we probably should have started doing it from the beginning. It is easy to say in hindsight, but it should have been part of the overall oil and gas strategy right from the start.
It was interesting to hear the Chancellor’s reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) during the spring statement yesterday. He said:
“Scotland gets its share of…capital and resource, but precious little thanks do we ever hear from…the SNP Benches”.—[Official Report, 13 March 2019; Vol. 656, c. 360.]
The fact that £350 billion went into Treasury coffers but not a brass farthing went directly into the Scottish economy underlines the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock) about what Scotland has got out of oil and gas. We could have had an awful lot more to benefit every man, woman and child in our country. The Chancellor’s concept of pooling and sharing is much different from mine.
I am grateful that the control, stewardship and the tax take will soon be back in Scotland’s hands—“stewardship” is the key word rather than “management”. I return to the eloquent point made by the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Hugh Gaffney) on safety: if companies are being brought to the table to talk about how to license certain fields, surely that is a fantastic opportunity to talk about their responsibilities for trade union recognition, and the safety and security of people who work on rigs far out in the North sea.
Scotland does not underestimate the vital part the oil and gas sector plays in meeting our energy needs; as the Committee points out, it is forecast that two thirds of the UK’s primary energy needs will be met from the North sea until at least 2035. However, we must also appreciate that we need to transition to a low-energy, low-carbon economy. Our world-leading, export-oriented supply chain already plays a positive role in that respect by looking at ways to reduce its carbon footprint at every turn. Average emissions per unit of production on the UK continental shelf have fallen year on year since 2013, and total emissions have been in decline since their peak in 2000.
Our oil and gas industry is awash with highly skilled individuals in possession of world-leading expertise. The sector currently supports 283,000 jobs across the UK. We must seek to hold on to those workers to retain the value they add to our economy. As I said, the Scottish Government’s transition training fund has made good progress in that regard, facilitating training for many oil and gas workers to move into renewables such as tidal, onshore and offshore wind, wave power and solar. However, the UK Government’s decision to slash funding for the renewable energy sector does not give us much encouragement. In fact, it does exactly the opposite, removing opportunities for talented individuals to utilise their skills to develop new wind technology and other low-carbon technologies such as carbon capture and storage—not so much opportunity knocks as an opportunity lost.
Brexit looms large in many people’s minds. We stand at a Brexit crossroads, with freefall into no deal on one side and a car crash of a bad deal on the other. It is inevitable that business across the UK will suffer if we ever actually leave the EU, but the oil and gas industry is likely to be one of the hardest hit, due to its highly globalised nature. With approximately £61 billion of oil and gas-related goods traded with the rest of the world, the threat of tariffs looms over the industry. In a worst-case scenario where the UK reverted to World Trade Organisation rules with the EU and the rest of the world, the cost of trade would likely almost double to around £1.1 billion per annum, assuming trading behaviours remained unchanged.
Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)
Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that we want to share the time out: if he could wrap up in two minutes, that would be great.
Douglas Chapman
Certainly, Mr Walker; I will move on to my final comment.
The report’s conclusions focus on the positives: developing an ambitious deal for the sector as a whole, which I hope will be supported; developing new technology, which many Members spoke about, so we can recover more of what we need; reducing the costs of decommissioning; exporting the sector’s skills and experience, not just in exploration but in subsea work; and making the vital transition from carbon energy such as oil and gas to renewables—especially hydrogen, which could be a game changer and might just help save the planet. The opportunities remain immense, and the sector deal outlined by the Committee would offer energy security for decades to come and allow Scotland to remain a sector leader.
Draft Shipments of Radioactive Substances (EU Exit) Regulations 2019
Douglas Chapman Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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The Chair
Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP)
I was expecting to be called, as is normal for the spokesperson for the third party in Parliament.
Douglas Chapman
We oppose the regulations. We feel that the UK may leave the Euratom treaty on the same day as we leave the EU. Since regulation will still be automatically based in EU law on exit day, and we will no longer be a member state, we have some concerns about the future relationship.
The Minister has mentioned our concerns, but the requirement to make a quarterly return will not be replicated under the draft instrument, and the obligation to make a prior written declaration will apply to UK imports, but not vice versa. We are in favour of retaining relationships that are as close as possible beyond Brexit, but despite the Government’s best attempts to ensure continuity, we oppose the instrument on the basis that we do not believe that the Government have explored all the relationships that we would want to see in place before the regulations are put into practice.
Draft Transfrontier Shipment of Radioactive Waste and spent fuel (EU Exit) Regulations 2018
Douglas Chapman Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP)
I thank the Minister for outlining the draft regulations so well, but we are concerned that we are breaking our link with Euratom. Some things in the EU seem to work very well, and that competence and collaboration will be sadly missed—but so be it.
Let me pose a few questions about the position in Scotland. Will the radioactive waste management policy currently under the auspices of the Scottish Government remain intact? Will the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament retain their current devolved competences? Will the draft regulations have effect from day one? I think that will be 1 April—probably timely for some people, given that it is April Fool’s day. Again, we need to deal with that.
Is the Minister in a position to outline future plans, beyond Euratom, to ensure the safe transfer of radioactive materials and technologies? That will affect all parts of the UK, including services such as the NHS. Will those plans be subject to meaningful negotiations and consultation with the Scottish Government and other devolved Administrations?
Bombardier
Douglas Chapman Excerpts(7 years, 1 month ago)
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Greg Clark
The right hon. Gentleman speaks eloquently and strongly, and I think that is the mood of the House. Whatever the resolution, which we are determined will secure and sustain Bombardier’s future, the workforce is currently going through a torrid time, with people wondering about their livelihoods. That is why the earlier this situation can be brought to a conclusion by Boeing withdrawing its action, the better. It is important that we in this country show complete solidarity. Our debates about Brexit and the American Administration can continue, but every single Member of this House should recognise that this is an unjustified complaint against an important part of the economy. We should be united in standing up for the Bombardier workforce.
Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP)
I express my sympathy with Members from Northern Ireland, who have spoken eloquently on the issues that face them directly and the workforce that they are trying to protect. The Secretary of State in his statement said that, earlier in the year, the Minister for Energy and Industry, the hon. Member for Watford (Richard Harrington) met Boeing about the future relationship with the company. The Secretary of State will be well aware that there are huge and strategic contracts for P-8 maritime patrol aircraft, based at Lossiemouth, which will be important for the UK’s future strategic position and its position in NATO. What specific discussions has the Department had with Boeing about other contracts? How do we square the circle when it comes to what is happening with Bombardier in Northern Ireland and other Boeing contracts that we might have to rely on in future?
Greg Clark
The hon. Gentleman allows me to re-emphasise the conversation that I had with Boeing, which is that if there is to be a continuing relationship, we need the confidence that Boeing will deal fairly with the United Kingdom. If this is to be a strategic partnership, it needs to be a partnership, and partners do not take the kind of action against important United Kingdom interests that Boeing is seeking to take.