Sharon Hodgson
Main Page: Sharon Hodgson (Labour - Washington and Gateshead South)Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
I was extremely worried when this morning at an event in the House of Lords for Nissan the Business Secretary seemed to say that the potential loss of thousands of highly skilled engineering jobs at the factory in my constituency in Washington, and those of others around the country, would be good news for other employers, who could snap them up. Would the Minister like to clarify those comments on behalf of his boss and give us an assurance today that he will fight, rather than accept, the loss of these highly skilled, much needed jobs?
Matthew Hancock
Of course, I was not present at this morning’s event, and I doubt very much whether that was my right hon. Friend’s intention. However, the point is that we have engineering and manufacturing growth, and this has been a difficult achievement and something of a turnaround job. Partly as a consequence of the lack of engineering training in the previous decade, we have engineering shortages, and I hope they can be filled, including from those affected by this decision. As I said in my statement, any decision to have redundancies is undoubtedly an unwelcome one, but it is our job to ensure that the people affected get every best possible potential chance for the future, and we will work night and day to do that.