[R] signifies the Member has declared an interest. [W] signifies that the question was tabled in Welsh.

I have accepted an urgent question under Standing Order 12.66, and I call on Adam Price to ask the urgent question.

What is the Welsh Government’s response to reports that British Airways is looking to cut 66 jobs at its maintenance facility based at Cardiff Airport? EAQ(5)0054(EI)[W]

Today’s news of redundancies at British Airways’ maintenance facility is unfortunate. BA is seeking voluntary redundancies where possible. The Welsh Government is working closely with BA. Job Centre Plus and Careers Wales will be asked to support all staff affected, and the Cabinet Secretary for the Economy and Infrastructure will keep the Assembly updated as we know more.

Obviously, as the Minister has said, this is clearly very unwelcome news in deeply uncertain economic times, and will be of great concern to the employees affected and their families. And, of course, it’s a serious blow to the aerospace sector, which is a major source of high-skilled and highly paid jobs throughout Wales, but, obviously, particularly in this enterprise zone in which the Welsh Government has invested heavily, not least, of course, in acquiring Cardiff Airport itself. Could the Minister tell the Assembly at what point the Government was aware of these impending job losses? There seems to be a worrying pattern of late with some of our major companies making these announcements. Are the antennae of the Welsh Government sufficiently alive to these possibilities?

Can the Government also share what it knows about the underlying purpose behind this announcement? The company has referred to corporate restructuring. Is this a case of cuts in numbers overall, or is some of the maintenance activity being relocated elsewhere? Is it the case, as we have heard from members of the workforce, that there is also a suggestion of some staff being re-graded and suffering a loss in salary as a result?

The company has itself made a series of profit warnings over the course of the last few months, as a result of the depreciation in the pound and the uncertainty following the referendum. Is there any suggestion at this stage of any link between this decision and those profit warnings? Would the Minister agree that if it is simply a case of cutting costs, that would be very, very troubling if it’s done at the expense of the workforce and indeed the safety of BA’s customers, particularly by a company that, despite those profit warnings, will still have a profit of over £1 billion and pays its chief executive, the chief executive of the international aviation group, Willie Walsh, multi-million pounds? That is why I feel that the workforce, certainly, will find this decision and the rationale behind it very, very difficult to take. Finally, can she say where this leaves the strategy that I referred to in terms of the enterprise zone, and in terms of the aviation sector, which is one of our key sectors here in Wales?

Well, thank you very much for those questions, which are all very important indeed, and I’ll try my best to answer them fully. In terms of when, the Government has, via its officials and on a political level, been in touch with BA throughout this year. Senior-level meetings were held earlier this year in London. A range of officials are engaged with BA at all times as part of the Welsh Government strategy to assist the company.

We knew formally about these job losses this morning, because it was right and proper that BA told its staff, its workforce, first before they made any other third party and stakeholders aware, but we were told immediately afterwards. We are in constant contact with them, so it was not a surprise, but we were not formally informed until after the workforce was formally informed. There now needs to be a proper legal process, a 90-day consultation period, and the unions are engaged with that. BA are very insistent that they are looking for voluntary redundancies, and that they hope to avoid any compulsories. They are not able, obviously, to guarantee that, as nobody ever can in a process such as this, but they’re very hopeful that they can do that.

This is very much part of their five-year planned restructuring of their company, and I don’t want anyone to go from here today with a pall of gloom and despondency over it. Obviously, this is very bad news for the staff involved, and we will do our level best to assist all of them in any way that their circumstances warrant, but BA have a good future on the site, it is part of an overall planned restructure, and we have no reason to think that it’s any indication of any ongoing difficulty. I certainly don’t want to give any impression at all that there’s any issue around safety or any issue such as that. There is absolutely no reason to think such a thing, and I really want Members not to go away with that impression.

So, I really only can reiterate what I said. This is part of the formal consultation, it is part of an overall strategy we have been engaged with. I think they’re following the right processes. We have no reason to have an enormous amount of alarm. I have every sympathy with staff affected by this, but there’s no reason for more widespread alarm and, in fact, there’s every reason to feel hopeful that the five-year plan will eventually emerge with a more sustainable and more grounded industry here in Cardiff.

Minister, thank you for your response so far to the urgent question. I’ve visited the site on numerous occasions and realise what a complex site it is, with a multi-disciplinary team there who are performing at the top of their game, but in a very competitive environment, with Dubai and Singapore offering very large economies of scale to some operators, but BA, in fairness to them, have committed to that site and have invested significant amounts of money in that site, they have. Could you elaborate slightly on your discussions and the Government’s discussions with BA as to whether there have been any formal requests for support to recategorise employment on the site, help with retraining, or support of any shape to retain any of these 66 jobs, put formally to the Government? I hear what you say about the formal announcement was only relayed to you this morning, but you did give an indication, obviously, that, in preliminary discussions, you were made aware that there might be some challenges within the employment base there.

Secondly, we are aware, obviously, of the positive news that was announced last year of them winning the Dreamliner contract for future maintenance, but there is a period between the phasing out of the 747s and the Dreamliners obviously requiring their maintenance schedules, because obviously it is a very new aircraft. Are these job losses a symptom of that short—hopefully, short—period of transition between the phasing out of the 747s that are in the BA fleet and the taking on of the Dreamliner maintenance work to the site, so there is an element of slack in the system that obviously requires some rebalancing of the workforce? Above all, can you confirm whether any of these job losses are in a specific division on the site, or are they across the whole of the workforce on the site, which numbers some 700 employees?

This is obviously a concerning time for the families and the employees themselves, but I, too—like you, Minister—do share optimism over the security of the site and, indeed, obviously over the future order book, which does look robust, but there is, as I said, this transition from the 747s to the Dreamliners.

Well, I’m not in a position to give you chapter and verse of the strategy for BA at the site; I think it’s a matter for them to do that, as a corporate entity. And that’s what I said, when I said the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Infrastructure would keep the Assembly informed—as it’s right and proper for the Assembly to know what the plan is, and as it’s announced to the workforce and so on, we will keep the Assembly informed of that. So, I’m not in a position today to give you chapter and verse about the intricacies of the plan, but I will say that we have been working very closely with the company, that we are fully involved, and that we have every hope for the future of the site and that it will be put on a sustainable footing for the foreseeable future, and that’s what we all want. I will reiterate my sympathy for staff facing redundancy. We have every sympathy with people whose lives are affected in that way—it’s a terrible thing for anybody to face—but I do not want anybody to go away today with the downbeat notion that that means that there is some structural uncertainty or anything else in BA. That’s very much not the message we want to give off.

In terms of the conversation about training, we have been assisting BAMCE with training in the way that we assist many of our anchor and regionally important companies, and so on. So, we have a training programme that we assist them with—we assist them with apprentices, for example, and other training needs. That’s very much part of the structured relationship between the Government and the company, and that’s continuing. I’ve no reason to feel that that’s anything other than the success story that I’ve reported in this Chamber a number of times in terms of the apprentices, and so on. So, there’s no reason to be alarmed there. The process needs to be gone through. We need to be hopeful that we can secure voluntary redundancies, that there won’t be any need for people who don’t want to go to go, and, as I say, our staff and the Jobcentre Plus staff are on hand to pick up individuals and ensure that their individual circumstances and needs are met, and it’s very much that individual service that we offer for staff in this situation.

So, again, I’ll just reiterate that we have no reason to think that there’s any fundamental structural problem with this, that there’s no reason for alarm for the rest of the staff there, that we have a five-year plan in train and that we have a good relationship with the company, which we have every reason to think will continue into the future.

I thank the Minister.