Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:59 pm on 12 October 2016.
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.