Flybe

Saqib Bhatti Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kelly Tolhurst]

The hon. Gentleman raises a valid point. As I hope he will appreciate, when I came to the Chamber conversations were still going on; we literally had the agreements on rail and with regard to easyJet just before I came in. I cannot give the hon. Gentleman a definitive answer, but I assure him that my colleagues and officials at the Department for Transport are working on those very options to get individuals home.

[Saqib Bhatti (Meriden) (Con)]

My constituency is home to Birmingham airport, and the collapse of Flybe is extremely worrying. My thoughts go out to all the hard-working staff who will be worrying about their jobs this morning. Will the Minister tell us what measures the Department for Transport will be taking to ensure that Flybe staff are fully supported in getting new jobs? Will the DFT continue to monitor the situation and encourage other airlines to take them on?

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting the staff and some of the challenges. We are lucky today to have the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies), on the Front Bench. She will roll out the rapid response service for those staff.

As I have outlined, Loganair has agreed to prioritise some of Flybe’s former staff. We will be working really hard with it and the rest of the industry to make sure that we can get those people into new jobs. Some of them are highly skilled and have great experience. We need to make sure that we find them new roles as soon as possible.