Rolls-Royce Redundancies

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Thursday 14th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. In fact, the demand for engineering skills is increasing right across the country, including in both the east midlands and the west midlands. Rolls-Royce itself plays an important role in training engineers. I met some of the young engineers in Derby, and they can look forward to a wonderful career in engineering.

Through the industrial strategy, as my hon. Friend is aware, we are placing greater emphasis on science, technology, engineering and maths skills in schools and colleges, and we are creating institutes of technology. With the aerospace and automotive sectors in the east midlands and west midlands, we are now creating more places for apprentices through those joint initiatives so that we can supply the growing order books, based on the skills that are needed.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I worked at Rolls-Royce when the company collapsed in 1971, and I can tell the Secretary of State that a lot of people at Rolls-Royce will be very worried indeed about their future. We have a plant just outside Coventry, as the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) mentioned. What will be the impact on, for example, the Ansty plant in Coventry and the Bristol plant, and on other plants across the country? Equally, this will have an impact on the supply chain, because I do not believe Rolls-Royce has 4,000 managers.

[Greg Clark]

The announcement was made at 7 o’clock this morning that there is a proposal to reduce the headcount. Rolls-Royce has specified that the reduction will be in the management and support functions, rather than in the engineering and operational aspect. When further information is made available, I will make sure the hon. Gentleman, as the Member for a constituency with a great interest in the matter, shares in that information.

It is important to emphasise that the aerospace sector is characterised by growth. The proposed redundancies at Rolls-Royce—I make no bones about it—are clearly devastating news for those who may be affected but, overall, aerospace, including Rolls-Royce in this country, is enjoying higher order books. We will work together to make sure that, including in the test beds we have established together, we are at the forefront of the latest technologies in the future, as we have been to date.