Rolls-Royce (Aerospace Group)

John Bercow Excerpts

Wednesday 5th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman spoke with great passion and wisdom on matters with which he is intimately concerned. For the future, however, it would be helpful if people tried to stick to the time limits on these matters, because there are many colleagues to accommodate. I do not wish to embarrass her, but I think that colleagues will probably learn shortly from the right hon. Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett) how it can be done pithily.

[Matthew Hancock]

Of course we are working to ensure that, as much as possible, those who face redundancy through this process have the support they need, especially to get other jobs in the sectors that are expanding fast. Aero as a whole is expanding, with its exports up sharply over the last four years.

I would, however, caution the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson). I very much look forward to working with him, colleagues and others to ensure that those who are affected get the support they need, but the 4,000-job increase in Rolls-Royce employment over the last four years has, in large part, been in exactly the sorts of high-skilled, high-quality jobs we all want to see. I do not think it behoves the hon. Gentleman well to try to deny that in some way. [Interruption.] On the contrary, what we are trying to do is ensure that, where there are skilled people, they get the retraining that they may need or the connection to those who are trying to expand, and where there are skills shortages in engineering, that undoubtedly means that there are opportunities and job vacancies for the people with those skills who are being made redundant by Rolls-Royce.