Aviation, Travel and Tourism Industries

John McDonnell Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab) [V]]

I just say gently to the Minister that the Government need to get real in this debate. Even the industry’s figures suggest that it will take at least until 2023 to 2025 for aviation demand to recover from pre-crisis levels. A report by the New Economics Foundation and the TUC suggests that as many as 17,000 jobs could be lost from the sector even if demand returns, thanks to automation and changes to working practices. That could have a devastating impact on my community. In fact, it already is and that has not been helped, as my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) said, by the behaviour of companies such as BA and Heathrow forcing through fire and rehire strategies to cut wages and terms of employment. I thank Unite the union for the work that it has done and the campaign that it has waged against that.

The reality is that we need a concrete and very effective aviation recovery strategy. That means a recognition by the Government that they simply cannot precipitately turn off the support that they have provided so far. We need a continuing job support and retention scheme specifically designed for this sector, just to give us the breathing space for the strategy for recovery to take place. Of course, any recovery or future strategy for aviation must be a green recovery, but this transition to an environmentally sustainable aviation sector will be successful only if it is a just transition. For my constituents, this means providing workers with the training and expertise needed to work in a lower emission and increasingly automated sector. However, it also means providing support and training to enable workers to shift into other emerging industries and sectors. Arrangements are also needed that put protections in place for lower-skilled and lower-paid workers, who will be the most vulnerable, as we have seen.

I also say to the Government that we need to think through the support that is needed to develop local economic strategies for hearty airport communities such as mine and those other Members have raised in the Chamber today. Any review of aviation policy must strike an equitable balance between the benefits that aviation brings and its adverse environmental, economic and health costs. That is why the “growth at all costs” mantra in Government must end. The review of aviation taxation is also necessary to fund the new strategy. As a final point, if levelling up is to be meaningful, Heathrow expansion competing against regional airports has to be cast into the dustbin of aviation history.