Thomas Cook

Richard Graham Excerpts

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

My right hon. Friend the high streets Minister has already been in contact with me about the further hole that this leaves in our high streets. He has a number of fantastic programmes, and the local authorities of many of us in the House will be bidding under them to enhance and improve high streets. As this latest collapse has shown, our high streets are dramatically changing as people need to come to the high street for an experience or a service that they cannot get elsewhere, including perhaps online. My right hon. Friend will be very happy to speak to the hon. Lady about that.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

I welcome the action taken on the priorities, which are to repatriate customers as soon as possible and to help innocent staff, such as those at Thomas Cook in Gloucester, to get new jobs as quickly as possible. However, does my right hon. Friend agree that, as well as carrying out an investigation into the corporate behaviour, the directors’ decisions, the future protection for pensioners and so on, his Department should also look at the aviation sector, and at great British strengths in general, to see whether parts of that sector—particularly package tour operators—have not adjusted to changing circumstances as quickly as they should and to see what more can be done?

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: there are very profitable parts of this sector. One large British airline has just made record profits, which shows that there is money to be made in the sector. However, I would not want to be in the position of dictating to the sector how it runs its businesses—some will succeed, and some will not. What I am passionately interested in is that, when they do go wrong, as has been discussed, the problems do not fall on the taxpayer’s shoulders.