Thank you, Mr Speaker, for allowing this urgent question. Today’s announcement by BAE Systems has come as a huge blow to thousands of workers and their families across Lancashire in the run-up to Christmas. The majority of Lancashire MPs have today written to the Prime Minister seeking immediate action and offering to establish a taskforce to avert the disaster. We ask the Minister for a swift, meaningful and positive response to our request.
What intermediate and longer-term actions are the Government taking to win contracts around the globe, to fly the flag and to sell the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Hawk? That is essential to sustaining the UK’s leading-edge technology and sovereign capability, as well as highly skilled jobs and the massive supply chain in the north-west of England. In order to maintain a leading edge, we must look to the future. BAE Systems has taken a big step by developing a £12 million academy in Lancashire. Will the Government play their role and announce an industrial strategy for aerospace, as they have done with shipbuilding, and will they commit themselves to assisting BAE Systems to develop a sixth-generation manned fighter aircraft?
With my right hon. Friend the Member for Chorley (Mr Hoyle) and my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Graham P. Jones), I met Prime Minister Cameron to urge him to secure vital contracts with Japan and India. We were assured that there was good news on the horizon, but there clearly was not. The Minister mentioned Qatar and that is obviously positive, but it is nothing like the size of the other contracts. Lancashire builds the finest because we have the best workforce in the world. We do not want to be let down again, so I ask the Minister to use her good offices to impress on the Prime Minister the major concerns of Lancashire MPs and indeed of MPs from across the House.