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Defence Jobs

I congratulate the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) on securing this debate—he has done us a real service. From the range of Members present, we can see that this is an important issue across the west midlands and it is also nice to see a full set of Shropshire MPs here. I can speak in defence of jobs in the county as a Shropshire lad who was born and raised there. I want to focus my brief remarks on three areas. First, I want to talk about ABRO, which is in the constituency of the hon. Member for The Wrekin, who I was going to call my hon. Friend—indeed, I will do that. I also want to talk about Cosford and particularly Sapphire house and the Defence Logistics Organisation at Sapphire house. We have had a problematic time in Shropshire over the past 12 months. A number of announcements in relation to defence jobs have been very negative and, on Sapphire house, the Ministry of Defence is plain wrong. The organisation at Sapphire house has a large number of highly skilled people who procure equipment for our armed forces. It is easy to think that those people sit around, press buttons on computer screens and make default decisions assisted by a computer in relation to equipment provided for the armed forces. That view is completely wrong as those people are in regular contact with the front line and take telephone calls about the provision of equipment for the armed forces from people who are war fighting on the front line. If we proceed with the proposal to move jobs out of my constituency to the Bath and Bristol area, we will lose that experience. There are generations of families who have worked at Sapphire house and the culture of supporting defence procurement has existed for more than 60 years in the wider Telford and Shropshire area. The loss of those jobs would be extremely negative for the Ministry of Defence and for the local economy. Yesterday, I took a number of trade union colleagues and Councillor Keith Austin, the chair of the local defence support group, to see the Minister. The Minister suggested he would look at making the consultation period for the decision in relation to Sapphire house more flexible. I hope that there will be flexibility and that the Minister will seriously consider the representations made to him by the trade unions yesterday—PCS members put together a strong and coherent case. We need to preserve the skills and capacity at Sapphire house. There is a community and generational aspect to the support given to Sapphire house and there will be recruitment and selection problems if the facility moves to the Bath and Bristol area. Hon. Members have already discussed the difficulties in recruiting staff in that area. There will be a significant problem given that, when the trade unions consulted their members—more than 400 at Sapphire house—97 per cent. said that they did not want to move to Bath or Bristol. There are a number reasons for that and they include family ties and connections, house prices and income. The Ministry of Defence actually gets a very good deal out of Shropshire people. I do not want to talk down salaries, but the Government get a very cheap deal and good value for money in terms of the people who work at Sapphire house, who are committed to the organisation and to the Ministry of Defence and go the extra mile. Those people deserve to be listened to and the Minister needs to take the message to the Government that they need to think again about Sapphire house. A number of the integrated project teams on that site are saying that they do not want to move. The drive for efficiency will not secure the savings that the Ministry of Defence require. We will see a fall in the quality of the service and that is particularly damaging at a time when our armed forces are heavily committed around the world. The Minister decided to change his view on ABRO, which is in constituency of the hon. Member for The Wrekin, largely due to the pressure brought to bear by the trade unions, the defence support group and by Members from across the political spectrum, particularly the Shropshire five as we could call ourselves. We need to go forward now and ensure ABRO has not just a medium-term future, but a long-term future based at Donnington. A number of Amicus trade union representatives from ABRO came to see me at my surgery a couple of weeks ago. They are keen to work constructively with the Ministry of Defence and with management to make sure ABRO at Donnington is extremely efficient and indispensable. The trade union representatives are developing new opportunities for on-site training and are flexible in their approach. We would like to explore in more detail the proposals that the Government are considering in relation to a Govcom for ABRO and we need to go out and win more private sector work, which I know the work force are keen to do. When there is a surge in demand for armoured repairs because troops are in action, the only real place that can deal with it is ABRO. The people who work at ABRO, like those at Sapphire house, go the extra mile—if there is a job to be done, they make sure it is done. They do not watch the clock, they turn up outside their normal hours and do the work for our front line troops. This means that when there is a surge in demand because our troops are under threat and they need armour to be repaired, they can rapidly go back out onto the front line. There is great commitment both in Sapphire house and ABRO to our front line, and we should thank all the civilian staff involved in that work for ensuring that our armed forces are supported professionally and will continue to be supported professionally as long as those jobs are retained in Shropshire, in Telford and in Wrekin. I shall finish by speaking about Cosford, which is crucial for the long-term future of our manufacturing base in the west midlands. Cosford is ideally placed to be the defence training establishment for the UK. It is central geographically, as the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne) said, and the transport links to the site are superb. The M54 runs probably one mile away from the site, and the rail link is virtually on the site. There is also a great history and heritage about the RAF at Cosford. With the aerospace museum and the new museum on the cold war based on the site, there is a real connection between modern-day training and the history and heritage of the RAF. That is significant when it comes to getting people through the training environment and ensuring that they understand the history of the RAF and the future dynamic of the RAF and other services. Given the knowledge, skills and training base across the west midlands, we have an unsurpassed level of expertise. As part of the proposal, Advantage West Midlands, the regional development agency, proposes to create a national manufacturing skills academy focused around the Cosford site. That is very important.