Thank you for contacting me about British Airways
I fully appreciate that this must be a very worrying and upsetting time for British Airways employees and their families.
I regret the commercial decisions that BA have announced, not least because the airline was benefiting from the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, which was not designed to fund the wages of employees only for companies to put the same staff on notice of redundancy during the furlough period.
There can be no doubt that the aviation sector is facing serious challenges. However, making use of the unprecedented support available, such as the deferral of VAT payments, the Covid Corporate Financing Facility and of course the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, is clearly preferable to making employees redundant. Organisations who do decide to make employees redundant should do so with fairness. Indeed, businesses are judged by the way they behave and by the way they treat their employees, and British Airways are no different.
I also want to reassure you that the Department for Work and Pensions nonetheless stands ready to help affected employees identify and access the support that is available.
Ultimately terms and conditions of employment are a matter for negotiation between employers and employees, and the Government are not part of those discussions. However, it is only reasonable to expect employers to treat employees fairly and in the spirit of partnership.
More widely, the Department for Transport has established a ‘Restart, Recovery and Engagement’ unit designed to work alongside the aviation industry on the immediate issues around restart as well as the sector’s longer-term growth and recovery. As part of this work, an aviation restart and recovery expert steering group has been formed, consisting of representatives from across the sector, including airports, airlines and ground handlers, industry bodies and unions. On the specific issues of slot allocation, as I understand it, the Government is legally prevented from intervening in such decisions. However, Ministers have said that as the UK aviation market recovers, they want to look at the process for slot allocation to ensure it encourages competition and provides connectivity.
Ministers have been clear that if airlines find themselves in serious financial difficulty due to COVID-19 and have exhausted the measures already available to them, then the Government is prepared as a last resort to enter discussions with individual companies seeking bespoke support. Rightly, any intervention would need to represent value for money for taxpayers.
I will continue to monitor the situation very closely and listen to the views of those here in the Calder Valley. I will convey the concerns raised with me to my Ministerial colleagues.
Thank you again for taking the time to contact me.
Craig Whittaker MP
June 2020