Transport for the North

Debate between Tony Lloyd and Andrew Stephenson

Wednesday 24th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Stephenson]

My hon. Friend continues to make a passionate case for Lincoln. As he will know, many of the investments that he has campaigned so strongly for are the responsibility of other Ministers in the Department for Transport, but I am sure that they have, once again, heard his pitch.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

I say to the Minister that there is no evidence that the Department for Transport can deliver on time or on cost, so why has the change to the delivery mechanism taken place? The cuts that we saw last week will have a serious impact on the economy across the whole of the north of England. Rochdale wants to trade with Hull, Newcastle and Sheffield, but the Government’s plan does not allow that to take place.

[Andrew Stephenson]

The hon. Gentleman asks about the change from co-clienting to co-sponsorship. As he will know, Crossrail, which has yet to open, was a co-cliented project, and one of the major lessons we have learned from that project being massively over-budget and delayed is that co-clienting does not work on major infrastructure projects. There need to be clear lines of accountability to the Secretary of State for Transport—he needs to be solely responsible for these projects to Parliament, the National Audit Office, the Public Accounts Committee and others—and that is why we are going for a sole-clienting model. It is one of the lessons we have learned from the Crossrail debacle.

Bombardier

Debate between Tony Lloyd and Andrew Stephenson

Tuesday 7th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy if he will make a statement on the decision by Bombardier to sell its operations in Northern Ireland.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Andrew Stephenson)]

Last Thursday, Bombardier Inc. announced its plans to sell its Belfast aerostructures and engineering services operations. The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has spoken to Alain Bellemare, Bombardier’s chief executive, and Michael Ryan, the head of its Belfast operations, about this decision.

The decision is a change of strategy for Bombardier, and we have asked the company to explain it. Bombardier has told us it is a strategic decision so that the company can focus on its transportation division, which includes trains and business jets. The company will be consolidating its aerospace assets into a single business unit with core operations in Canada, the USA and Mexico, while selling its Northern Ireland and Morocco units. Bombardier has said it will continue to be committed to rail transportation in the United Kingdom.

I recognise this is unwelcome news for the Northern Irish workforce across the company’s sites in Belfast, Dunmurry, Newtownards and Newtownabbey and for their families. It is deeply regrettable that they face further uncertainty about their future. We have been assured by Bombardier that it is committed to finding the right buyer and will not rush to sell at any price. Bombardier has said it will secure a buyer that will operate responsibly and will help the buyer to achieve its full growth potential.

The Belfast plant, its expertise and its highly skilled and dedicated staff will be highly sought after, and we will be working with potential buyers to take this successful and ambitious business forward. Bombardier has committed to no further job losses at the Short Brothers factory in Belfast and has paused the redundancy process from its November 2018 restructuring announcement. The management team will still continue to drive ongoing transformation initiatives to improve productivity and increase competitiveness.

The Short Brothers factory employs around 3,600 skilled workers, with a large number of them working on the A220 aircraft joint venture programme with Airbus. It also supports a supply chain of hundreds of companies and many more jobs in the UK. Bombardier’s commitment to the Short Brothers factory has transformed the business, changing it to a state-of-the-art wing factory with a healthy order book. The Belfast plant is a vital asset to the UK’s world-leading aerospace sector and is a centre of excellence in advanced composites and in the design and manufacture of some of the most high-value components in aerospace manufacturing.

We are committed to helping ensure that the Belfast facility continues to be successful. Last year, when the A220 aircraft joint venture was launched, both Bombardier and Airbus made a number of important commitments to the Business Secretary, including that wing manufacturing will continue in Belfast, that the treatment of UK sites and suppliers will be equal to that of other Bombardier and Airbus suppliers and that the strategy will be one of building on existing capabilities. I expect those commitments to be respected.

We will continue to work closely with the company, the unions and the Northern Ireland Departments while this process is under way.

[Tony Lloyd]

I welcome the Minister to the Front Bench. He is right to describe Bombardier as a company of vital importance. The workforce, of course, are both dedicated and highly skilled, but that of itself does not express the importance of Bombardier to the Northern Ireland economy. This is a world-class operation and an icon of Northern Ireland’s capacity to deliver world-class manufacturing and production. The company represents some 10% of Northern Ireland’s manufacturing output, and, as he says, it employs some 3,600 people across its different sites in Northern Ireland, but that only partially tells the story of a company with a supply chain that employs many, many more—some in Northern Ireland and some in other parts of the United Kingdom. Bombardier’s decision comes as a genuine shock and will lead to potential dismay. The Minister tells us that Bombardier has made commitments to try to maintain the site’s viability.

I would like to draw the House’s attention to comments made by the Moroccan Industry Minister, because Morocco is in the same position as Northern Ireland in this context. Moulay Hafid Elalamy has confirmed that Bombardier’s Casablanca factory operations will continue after Bombardier sells it plants. We look to the Minister to give the same kind of assurance to the people of Northern Ireland, the UK and beyond that Bombardier will make sure that the current workforce, skills base and production will continue unscathed.

In that context, the Minister has told us that conversations have taken place between the Secretary of State and Bombardier’s management. Will the Minister tell us whether there are plans to meet the representatives of the workforce—the trade unions involved? They are particularly keen—I agree with them on this—that the Secretary of State should hold a summit involving all the key partners, not simply the company and the workforce, but other stakeholders, including Members of this House and others elsewhere. It is important that a combined effort across Northern Ireland is made to ensure that we salvage what is proper from this announcement. Can the Minister, once again, establish that Bombardier will be sold as a total going concern? It matters enormously that we do not see a vulture company coming in, stripping its assets and its workforce and denuding both Northern Ireland and the UK of the Bombardier capacity.

Those with a good memory will recall that when Short Brothers, the predecessor company, was in public ownership, public money went into this site. What is the legacy of that public money? Can the Minister give assurances that Bombardier is committed to making sure that there is proper legacy for its workforce in Northern Ireland? Will consideration be given by his colleagues, probably those in the Treasury, as to whether enhanced funding should be provided for the Belfast city deal? Obviously, this announcement will create pressures on the Belfast city region and the people who live there.

The final point I wish to make to the Minister is a simple one. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland cannot be with us today, for perfectly valid reasons—she is hosting five-party talks in Northern Ireland—but it is important that this Government do everything they can to see the Northern Ireland Executive back in operation. Were the Executive in place today, this would make both the Minister’s task and the future of Bombardier much less complicated.

[Andrew Stephenson]

I thank the shadow Secretary of State for the tone of his remarks, and I agree with him completely on the importance of Bombardier. Indeed, I would go as far as to say that it is a jewel in the crown of not only Northern Irish manufacturing, but the whole UK aerospace sector. It is therefore vital that we all work together to do everything we can to ensure the future of this site and its workforce.

The hon. Gentleman posed a range of questions that I wish to touch on. I am more than happy to meet the unions and workers’ representatives to talk about this issue, and to visit Northern Ireland to see what we can do. It is important that we find the right buyer for this company, which has a good order book and is profitable. Like other companies in the aerospace sector, it has huge growth potential in the coming years. I will not rehearse the statistics now, but they show huge growth potential in the aerospace sector, and Bombardier is well positioned to capitalise on it.

The Government continue to work to support the wider Northern Irish economy. A heads of terms agreement for the Belfast city deal was agreed by the UK Government, Northern Irish government and Belfast regional partners in March 2019. The Belfast region city deal will see the UK Government invest £350 million into the Belfast region over the next 15 years. In addition, work is ongoing between the UK Government and local partners on a funding announcement for a Londonderry/Derry regional city deal. As has been said, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is not here—obviously, she is doing good work in Northern Ireland at the moment—but I stand ready to work with her and other Ministers to ensure that all necessary support is given to the workers at this site going forward.

Criminal Justice System

Debate between Tony Lloyd and Andrew Stephenson

Wednesday 17th October 2012 Westminster Hall

[Tony Lloyd]

Yes, and that is fine. I totally agree with victim impact statements. The only problem is that they are not compulsory and not always requested. We know that victims sometimes complain that they are under pressure to produce a statement that does not reflect what they really feel to be the impact. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right in saying that that is the direction of travel that we have to take, but I think we have to go a lot further. I will certainly make that point later.

Sir Paul Stephenson, the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, recently made some caustic statements about his own stewardship of policing and of policing more generally. He was highly critical in saying that burglary is often not dealt with as severely as he felt it should be. He asked himself whether he had always dealt with it properly in his policing career.

It is certainly right to point out that many people think burglary is a very serious crime. Sir Paul Stephenson described it as invasive. He is right; it is invasive of people’s privacy and people’s lifestyles. Astonishingly, such an invasion of personal property and lifestyle sees more than half of those convicted receiving non-custodial sentences. Those non-custodial sentences are also relevant to a crime, which, in Greater Manchester, has a clear-up rate of less than 17%. Only one in six crimes is cleared up, and that does not necessarily include coming to court. Of those convicted, fewer than half receive a custodial sentence. We then wonder what signal that sends out to the wider community—to those who do not want to be burgled and those who want to burgle. There is a real issue.

I recently had an interesting conversation with somebody who has long experience of sentencing. He told me that he faces a regular dilemma. He works on the basis that non-custodial sentences are worth while; they can definitely perform a valuable part of the process. Nevertheless, if he feels that non-custodial sentences are not sufficient to offer proper restitution to the victim or do not offer any element of proper and legitimate punishment, he finds himself imposing custodial sentences in cases in which he would sometimes prefer not to. That is something we need to look at. If we are going to have a range of sentencing, we need to make sure that there is sufficient severity in the whole system. We need to look at sentencing as well.

Let me turn to those crimes that, although serious, have not received full-hearted emphasis throughout the criminal justice system. I refer in the most serious areas to sexual violence, rape, the sexual exploitation of children, domestic violence and even bullying and antisocial behaviour. Let me cite, as an example, the recent case of David Askew in Greater Manchester. Although he probably died of natural causes, there is almost no doubt in everyone’s mind that those natural causes were brought on by a consistent campaign of bullying that he had received from local youths, but no one took it seriously. With hindsight, people have said that had the various agencies—the social services, the children’s services and the police—shared the information base about the bullying, it would have triggered some sort of response. At no point, however, did it trigger a response, which left David Askew to spend years of his life in a degree of misery that he should not have had to put up with. It is wrong to say that bullying is not very serious; it is serious, as is antisocial behaviour. We must see antisocial behaviour as being central to the type of society in which we live. We cannot have no-go areas in which antisocial behaviour is accepted as legitimate.

It is also worth reflecting on the comparison between the celebrated cases of sexual exploitation of children in Rochdale and the situation of Jimmy Savile. I want to place it on the record that, although the English Defence League took it on itself to protest enormously about the situation in Rochdale—it is right that there should have been real concern there—it has not protested in the same way about Jimmy Savile. Sexual exploitation is about not the ethnicity or the cultural background of those involved but criminal behaviour, and criminal behaviour, whether by the Jimmy Saviles of this world or by Rochdale taxi drivers, is something that we must prosecute and pursue.

In all those cases, the culture of the criminal justice system is such that it did not take seriously the position of victims. The young women in Rochdale were described as from a council estate. I cannot accept that there is a council estate definition of acceptable crime versus those who live elsewhere. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) will want to speak more on that issue.

We have to change the culture with respect to sexual exploitation, especially of children, domestic violence, sexual violence and even stalking, because they cause real misery, destroy lives and, in the end, can lead to the most serious of crimes, up to and including murder. The culture that says that such crimes do not matter or that allows them to slip through has got to change, whether that happens through the police, the Crown Prosecution Service or the local authorities.

[Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate and I fully endorse what he is saying, especially on domestic violence and child sexual exploitation. On sentencing, which he has touched on, constituents of mine, John and Penny Clough, set up the Justice for Jane campaign following the brutal murder of their daughter, Jane Clough, who was a nurse. She was murdered in a hospital car park by her former partner and rapist Jonathan Vass, who was released on bail by a judge. One of the things that they found most hurtful was the fact that he was only sentenced as a murderer; he was never sentenced as a rapist and a murderer. Those cases were left to lie on file. Will the hon. Gentleman join me in praising the efforts of John and Penny in talking to Keir Starmer and the Crown Prosecution Service to ensure that severe charges such as rape are not simply left on a shelf and that people such as Vass are not able to cover their crimes by murdering the only witness?

[Tony Lloyd]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. John and Penny have persuaded Keir Starmer that no longer should things simply lie on file. What is clear is that there was a case to be tried. It would have gone to trial had the subsequent murder not taken place. It is distressing for the family. I can understand that not only as a father but as a citizen.

On stalking, half the people who are stalked will have been stalked for more than 18 months before anything is done about it, so many events in their lives will cause them both fear and misery. In the worst cases, stalking has led to much more serious offences, such as rape and murder. We also know that the probability of someone being brought to prosecution for stalking is still phenomenally low. Even in the event of prosecution, only about 2.2% of those involved in this serious crime end up with a jail sentence. Again, we must change the culture that allows that to take place.

There are examples of extremely good police performance. I had a meeting recently with women who had been victims of, or involved with, domestic violence. One person, who was the victim of a violent attack by her ex-partner, said that she wanted to place it on the record that her own experience of the police, the refuge that gave her shelter, the Crown Prosecution Service and other services had been good. In the same meeting, another woman told me that when she lay on the floor waiting for an ambulance to be called, she heard police officers joking with her partner, which simply should not happen in this day and age. Our police need specialist training for domestic violence and stalking, but it is not unreasonable to say that it should be there for all. Whoever polices or prosecutes domestic violence must treat that crime as something that matters, and the criminal justice system must help to resolve the problems.

Let me move on because I am conscious of the number of Members who wish to speak. The Minister will recall the debate a few weeks ago on criminal injuries compensation. I am sure that she will tell us that the Government are funding victim services in whatever way. None the less, there is still great anxiety about the criminal injuries compensation scheme and what will happen to it. I hope today that she will take the chance to clarify the Government’s intentions on the matter. There is massive interest outside in what is happening. There is massive interest, too, in Parliament. I do not say this as a warning, but I hope that she has been able to tell her colleagues in Government that her own experience in that debate was a little unfair on her but was not unfair in the spirit of what she inherited from her predecessors. We need some clarification that we will have a robust criminal injuries compensation system that survives any proposed changes.