Leaving the EU: Airbus Risk Assessment Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Drew Hendry
Main Page: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)Department Debates - View all Drew Hendry's debates with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Leaving the EU: Airbus Risk Assessment
Drew Hendry Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
Airbus’s risk assessment is sobering news for those drunk on the fantasies of Brexit. Airbus has forecast “severe disruption” and “interruption of production” in the UK, forcing it to switch investment planning away from the UK. Airbus says that this is not “Project Fear” but a dawning reality. The fact is that business after business is shouting, “Brace, brace.” At the heart of this is the lack of any plan or any sense over the customs union from this Government. This, coupled with no sign of any agreement over the EU-US open skies arrangement, means that Airbus is taking flight while the planes it already has in service could be stuck on the ground here.
The UK Government’s disastrous plan to leave the EU customs union and single market risks 80,000 jobs by 2030 in Scotland. Will the Secretary of State provide details about how the Government will protect 8,000 jobs and £541 million of activity in Scotland indirectly supported by Airbus? What technical discussions has he had with Airbus and sectoral organisations on the impact Brexit will have on the industry? In the light of this, what policy changes, if any, will he take forward?
Greg Clark
The hon. Gentleman talks about the impact of Brexit. It may have escaped his attention that we are negotiating the terms of our future economic partnership with the rest of the EU. The representations that have been made by Airbus—as I say, directed at the UK but also at other member states and the Commission —are about what that future economic partnership should look like. I hope there will be a broad consensus in the House that it should be a regime that allows fantastic sectors and companies within them to not only continue to export in a just-in-time system in which any delay at the border undermines the business model, but also to expand production in a rapidly expanding market, not just in Europe but around the world. That is what we are negotiating, and that is the context in which Airbus has given advice to us and the other side of the negotiations.