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.