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Welsh Affairs

Airbus UK, and especially its plant at Broughton, which is the biggest manufacturing centre in the United Kingdom, if not in Europe, sets a standard of excellence for all. It is important that we recognise that the difficulties to which my hon. Friend referred are, as I understand it, going to drive forward Airbus to even greater success in the future as the premier airline manufacturer across the world—especially in competition with Boeing. It is important to put it on the record that the job cuts that, regrettably, have had to be made over the coming four years are in relation to overhead costs, not engineering, production or manufacturing costs, where Airbus expects to expand its production. As part of a decision taken at a European level, there will be extra work to do with wing manufacture, which was previously carried out in facilities in mainland Europe. That is good news for Airbus.