Train-building Industry

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2011 Westminster Hall

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gale.

I echo everything that my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) said, and much of what the right hon. Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett) said, because this issue is not party political but about the welfare of people in all our constituencies. Everyone present today, especially from Derbyshire, is touched. However, there are particular worries over the border in Staffordshire, as well as in Nottinghamshire. Although Bombardier is in the right hon. Lady’s Derby South constituency, the situation affects every single one of us. There is a huge knock-on effect on not only the supply chain, but where people spend their money. If people are redundant and therefore do not have money, all the knock-on industries will have to make reductions, and that will have a big impact on our area’s towns and cities. I know that Derby is not doing as well as we come out of the recession as it could have done had the contract been won. People have a huge lack of confidence about their future and how much money, if any, they will be able to spend.

Over the months during which we have been waiting for the decision, I personally lobbied the Secretary of State for Transport on several occasions. Unfortunately, he told me every single time that I was not to worry because Bombardier was fine and was not going to pull out of this country—I mentioned that that was a possibility—as the company had lots of orders and would have no problem going forward. That is clearly not the case, so he misread the situation. I hope that he feels somewhat apologetic about the decision because he was clearly not looking at the wider situation in Derby and the surrounding areas.

When Hitachi of Japan and not Bombardier won a train order, did the Government review the procurement process and look at why we did not get it? If that did not happen, why not? Clearly, if we could not win that contract, other questions would be raised. As we heard earlier, Bombardier has not won five out of five of the important contracts going forward, so what can the Government do now?

I am as disappointed as every other Member in the Chamber today. We all get campaigning e-mails on things such as forests and the NHS. However, of the issues that affect real people in my constituency, I have had more e-mails and letters about this one than on all the rest put together since I was elected in 2010. That says something about people’s depth of feeling—not necessarily of those who work for Bombardier, but of those concerned about their neighbours, friends or relatives. Some people have three or four relatives working with Bombardier who are all being made redundant. That will have a devastating impact on people in my area. The situation is perhaps the worst we have faced since the crash of Rolls-Royce in 1971—I clearly remember how devastating that was for Derby. It took us a long time to come out of that recession, although Rolls-Royce is now a successful business.

I commend the city council for talking to Bombardier and trying to make it understand the devastating impact on the area. Unfortunately, the company had already made redundancy decisions, which I understand that the Secretary of State received a letter about as far back as March or April. Bombardier was going to make those redundancies anyway, but however much we say that, it does not help the people with the redundancy notices in their hands. Whether they were made redundant three months ago or now, they are still redundant and have an uncertain future.

My hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley mentioned that we have been talking a lot about coming out of the recession on the back of manufacturing. Well, it does not look like that from where I am sitting in Mid Derbyshire. If we do not do so with firms such as Bombardier, we will never do it, and we will not come out of recession anywhere near as quickly as we might have done had we got this contract in Derby.

I agree with my hon. Friend about the Department for Transport: is it the right organisation to handle such procurement? It does not seem to be able to get it right. Obviously, I agree that there must be competition and, as the right hon. Member for Derby South said, we do not want one contract and nothing else. We do not want a monopoly, but competition must be fair, and it does not seem to my constituents that there has been any fairness whatever.

It is ironic that, not many months ago, the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills came up to Rolls-Royce to open a new apprenticeship school. Some 50% of those apprenticeships are with Bombardier. He congratulated Rolls-Royce on the facility and congratulated Bombardier on sharing it, but that sounds hollow now. What is the future for those apprentices? They do not seem to have one. Will half that facility now not operate? That would probably mean redundancies.

The implications for the supply chain reverberate not just around Derby, but much further afield. What will happen to companies in the supply chain? Will they be able to take up opportunities to supply Siemens, or will Siemens procure everything from Germany or somewhere closer to it, instead of our excellent businesses? The Secretary of State and the Minister need to answer many questions about what swung the decision for Siemens and why Bombardier did not get the contract. Bombardier is an excellent production company. We have seen that it can win orders from other people, but not Government contracts, and that seems to be nonsense.

We must look to the future to see what the Government can do to bring forward procurement. There is Crossrail. We also need more tube trains and other rolling stock needs to be replaced. Will the Government consider urgently bringing that forward—not just by a year or two, but as far forward as possible—to give Bombardier the opportunity to win some contracts and save jobs in the Derbyshire area? The position is devastating and we need some answers, but I am sure that the Minister will be able to give them today.

We are asking the Office of Fair Trading to examine the procurement process and we are seeking a meeting with the Prime Minister. We must go to the very top and exhaust all possibilities. Can the contract be looked at again? Can we seriously change the decision? I believe that the decision was wrong, but we must bring forward opportunities for Bombardier to get back on its feet and to save jobs in Mid Derbyshire, Derby city and the rest of the area. I urge the Minister to do all that she can to bring forward such opportunities for the future of Bombardier and this country’s train industry. If it goes, we will not have a train industry and it will never ever return. The country will then be left without a train industry of which we can be proud.

[Several hon. Members]

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