Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Quin and Grahame Morris

Thursday 8th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

T5. As reported on BBC news this morning, tens of thousands of civil servants who are members of the PCS union have balloted overwhelmingly to strike over the coming weeks and months at Border Force, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency, National Highways and the Rural Payments Agency. Is the Minister aware that levels of pay and in-work poverty in some areas of the civil service are such that now the Department for Work and Pension’s own staff are themselves increasingly having to claim universal credit? That is a disgrace. What is he going to do about it in terms of increasing the offer?

[Jeremy Quin]

As I have already said in this House, I very much regret the decision of those concerned to go on strike. I think it will impact people, and I very much regret that that is the decision taken. The hon. Gentleman will have to accept that there are constraints on the public finances, partly because of the money we are providing to ensure that we try to help people through what we recognise is a very serious point at the moment in terms of their personal finances. That support is available to all, including those on lower incomes—including those who may be choosing to go on strike.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Quin and Grahame Morris

Monday 21st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Defence Procurement (Jeremy Quin)]

We recognise the need to manage risk and ensure resilience in our manufacturing and supply chains, including rotary wing. Through past and current investment in rotary wing capabilities, including Wildcat and Apache, and upgrades to Merlin and Chinook, the UK industrial base remains well placed to support existing and future helicopter platforms, and continues to be a market of great interest to our industrial partners.

[Grahame Morris]

I thank the Minister for that response and I declare an interest as chair of the Unite group of Labour MPs in Parliament. Further to my Defence question of 15 November, when I asked the Minister what steps his Department was taking to ensure the resilience of the helicopter supply chain in the UK, will he now assure the House that, whoever wins the contract, the new Puma-replacement helicopters will be both manufactured and assembled here in the United Kingdom?

Defence Procurement and Supply Chains

Debate between Jeremy Quin and Grahame Morris

Tuesday 1st December 2020 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Defence Procurement (Jeremy Quin)]

I welcome this important debate, and congratulate the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) on having secured it. This debate is particularly timely, as several hon. Members have reminded us, as it comes in the wake of an extremely positive bit of news. It is wonderful to see the Chamber united, with the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan) welcoming last week’s announcement. Even my friends from the Scottish National party have welcomed this investment in the defence of the United Kingdom, and I welcome the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) having done so. It is a £24 billion increase and, as has been suggested, that is a massive boost to the defence of the United Kingdom. It is the largest investment in 30 years—the largest since the end of the cold war—and I am so pleased that it has generated support in this Chamber this afternoon.

This is a timely debate not only because of that announcement, but because it comes at a point when “team defence” has done so much and performed so brilliantly in confronting the coronavirus pandemic. I begin by thanking the defence industry at every level for its positive and collaborative response to this once-in-a-hundred-years event.

At the heart of defence is a critical task of delivering equipment and support to our armed forces to enable them to continue their vital work. We were reminded of that by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) who served himself—it is the kit that our people need to do the job that they are called upon to do. Our partners in industry have risen to that challenge. They have done just that in providing support throughout the pandemic.

To assist them, the Department has actively supported the defence sector through the use of prepayments to maintain business continuity. Some £138 million has been paid on this basis to maintain that flow of cash right through the sector. That has been alongside our drumbeat of orders. I was grateful to hear the hon. Member for Neath (Christina Rees) mention the munitions contract with BAE. I hope that will benefit those employees. It is one of a number of contracts throughout Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom that have continued to be delivered through the course of this pandemic.

Just as we have been monitoring the health of 600 of our suppliers, we make clear to the clients their responsibility to actively engage and support the supply chain. We have engaged directly with ADS, which has been referred to, and with other trade bodies and it has been good to hear of the productive relationships that companies have enjoyed in supporting each other during this period.

As hon. Members have mentioned, the way in which the workforce has been throughout this has been particularly positive. I thank them for how they have adopted and adapted to necessarily different working practices to continue to supply our defence forces, pulling together in a common endeavour to support our forces. How everyone has stepped up to deliver this has been extremely welcome.

[Grahame Morris]

The Minister’s rhetoric is excellent, but in terms of the practicalities for fleet solid support ships, for Rolls-Royce, and the supply chain and the lift-fan blades for the STOL engines for the F-35 Lightning fighter, will the Minister recognise the important role of Government in giving direction to companies such as Rolls-Royce to ensure that that work is carried out here in the United Kingdom? It is part of our sovereign defence plan to ensure that we have security of supply over these vital components.

[Jeremy Quin]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I recognise the passion with which he addresses the issue of the Rolls-Royce concerns at Barnoldswick and the current action there. I hope that can be brought to a conclusion. I know my colleagues have said much the same. I am not aware of any long-term plans to remove the F-35 components from outside the United Kingdom. I am not aware of them and I hope we can continue and maintain a productive relationship with Rolls-Royce.

We all know what a dreadful situation is confronted by the aerospace industry in general. In practice, in defence, we continue to invest and provide that lifeblood of support to our companies that I hope will enable them to remain and prosper inside the UK. I will come on to the FSS point made by the hon. Gentleman later in my remarks.

The proposer of this debate, the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley), mentioned Cammell Laird, which is in his constituency, and I congratulate the company on its work through the pandemic. It has done sterling work on the Type 45 power improvement programme, and it is great to see HMS Dauntless re-floated with key equipment installed and back on to trials. The company has also been working with the Royal Fleet Auxiliary—currently RFA Wave Knight and RFA Tidesurge. With them, and the work of other companies in the marine sector, Birkenhead continues to provide invaluable contributions to the defence and the UK’s wider prosperity.

More broadly, the north-west has one of the highest per capita defence equipment spends of any region in the country. These figures might upset the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). The spend is £270 per head per year in the north-west, some way behind Scotland and indeed, Wales, but way ahead of Northern Ireland. The hon. Member for Strangford is absolutely right that we need to lift up and level up the economy.

Cabin Air Safety/Aerotoxic Syndrome

Debate between Jeremy Quin and Grahame Morris

Thursday 17th March 2016 Westminster Hall

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mrs Gillan.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for the debate and all Members who supported the application for one. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) for the professional and comprehensive way he put forward the case, and to the contributions of both Government and Opposition Members, in particular that of the hon. Member for Crawley (Henry Smith), who I suspect has not got the credit he deserves for raising the issue. The proposals and suggestions have been extraordinarily helpful, and I hope that the Minister will respond positively.

I must declare my interest as chair of the Unite group in Parliament. I am a proud member of Unite and I feel, as my colleagues do, that this is an important part of the work we do for our members and their families. I also pay tribute to Matt Bass’s parents, Charlie and Fiona, who might be listening to the debate today. I had the great privilege of meeting them and some Unite members who are air crew. At a meeting in Parliament, they relayed to us their personal experiences and concerns.

I thank my trade union, Unite, for its excellent and detailed briefing on such an important issue, and a number of Members have emphasised some specific aspects. It is important to recognise the valuable work of Unite in investigating concerns and protecting passengers and cabin crew from toxic fume events. I am concerned that airlines, regulators and, with due respect to the Minister, Governments do not seem to be terribly active in considering contaminated cabin air.

It would be remiss of me not to remind people—the general public who are listening to the debate or reading it in Hansard—that Unite has established a fume event register and a helpline, which are available through the website. Given the lack of any official reporting, I hope that when air crew and members of the public who are frequent flyers feel that there has been such an incident, they will use the Unite register to report it. We need the evidence and an objective assessment. We need public and cabin crew affected by fume events to come forward and identify them.

If we are not successful in convincing the Government to take action and to investigate the matter fully, we will need evidence because the only other option for people is to seek legal redress. As my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) mentioned, Unite is taking up the case of 61 of our members in relation to this issue. Earlier in the debate, the hon. Member for Horsham (Jeremy Quin) suggested that there was not a causal link between symptoms and exposure, but I am old enough to remember the arguments made against any causal link between smoking and lung cancer, or exposure to asbestos and the development of mesothelioma and asbestosis. I fully understand the reluctance of the industry to have an investigation, because of the potential costs involved, but it is beholden on us and the Minister in particular to look into such a link with all seriousness.

[Jeremy Quin]

I think I might have misheard the hon. Gentleman, but, if not, I would not want the record to suggest that I think there is no causal link—I am concerned that there might be. The hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) referred to asbestosis and we have also heard about organophosphates. I think there may be a causal link, and I am keen that the precautionary principle applies until we get really hard evidence that there is not. Like the hon. Gentleman, I am genuinely concerned.

[Grahame M. Morris]

I am grateful for that intervention; I did not mean to misrepresent the hon. Gentleman’s position. It is important that we look at evidence. Considerable pressure is building to have a proper investigation and to make an objective assessment as to whether there is a causative link between the symptoms, which are wide and various—I do not propose to go into them again because other Members have already done that—and exposure to toxic air fumes that have come from engines through bleed air systems.

Other Members have referred to the new generation Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which uses bleed-free systems. Those systems are not an industry standard, nor does Boeing’s decision seem to mark the beginning of a transition to a safer system. I echo the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde, because, apart from anything else, Unite has a substantial number of members involved in the aviation industry—not just flight and aircraft maintenance crew but those working in the manufacture of aircraft components and engines. I do not seek to damage confidence in the industry, but it is important that we ensure that this safety-critical industry enjoys complete confidence and we have those necessary assurances and investigations.

Royal Bank of Scotland

Debate between Jeremy Quin and Grahame Morris

Thursday 5th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Grahame M. Morris]

The hon. Gentleman is setting out an alternative view that RBS has changed and been reformed, but did not the LIBOR exchange rate-rigging scandal happen after it became a publicly owned bank? Has anything fundamentally changed in the bonus culture that drives such risk-taking and does not support jobs in the real economy?

[Jeremy Quin]

I acknowledge and appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s point. I would have a much better case if I could say that all the problems were pre-crisis, but they were not; I fully acknowledge that. There are clearly issues that were endemic in RBS’s culture, and I sincerely hope that it has got a grip on that now.

RBS certainly does have a grip on its corporate structure and how it is conducting its business. It is now far more focused back on the UK and on UK corporate lending. It is the largest single lender to UK corporates, the largest supporter of SMEs, and the largest provider of mortgage lending. That is what we all want to see and wanted to see when the stake was initially taken.