Flybe

Lord Trefgarne Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I hear completely what the noble Lord is saying. The route from Newquay to London is clearly incredibly important, which is why it has attracted a PSO, so we are looking at a replacement operator. We hope one will be able to step up. The local authority can select a new provider for seven months, then re-tender.

[Lord Trefgarne (Con)]

My Lords, having once worked as a pilot flying domestic services out of Southampton, among other places, I am pretty sensitive to what has happened. Can my noble friend say what public funds have so far been made available to Flybe? Will they be recovered?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

My noble friend raises an interesting point, because there is a lot of misconception around what happened in January and what public funds were or were not made available. The conversation in January focused on a number of commitments from the Government, which included a review of air passenger duty, the review of regional services and a time-to-pay agreement, which any business can enter into with HMRC to get through a short-term cash-flow difficulty. Not a single penny of taxpayers’ money was given to Flybe. In return for looking at those things, the share- holders put in additional cash to get Flybe through its operational difficulties. It is those same shareholders who have now concluded that Flybe has no long-term future.