Over the past few weeks, I have received a significant amount of correspondence regarding decisions made by British Airways. I know how important this is to so many people our constituency so I wanted to provide you with an update.
Businesses in the aviation and travel sectors have been significantly affected by the Covid-19 outbreak. I sympathise with anyone who is facing redundancy during the pandemic. Redundancy is never an easy process to go through, and it is important that those who have been made redundant are aware of their rights.
I am aware of a Private Members’ Bill introduced by Gavin Newlands MP which seeks to prevent BA and other companies from adopting “fire and re-hire” tactics. Companies should behave responsibly but there is already recourse for those who feel they have been treated unfairly. If an employee feels they have been dismissed unfairly, they should consider taking their case to an employment tribunal.
I want to reassure you that I have nonetheless spoken to Ministerial colleagues to make sure they are aware of the concerns of BA employees. During this difficult time, it is only right that employers should act responsibly and therefore only use the Job Retention Scheme to protect jobs. I understand that the Government is urging employers not to use the Job Retention Scheme to make someone redundant on less favourable terms than they would otherwise have received.
I did also write to the BA Chief Executive to raise concerns and received a response that you can find here.
The Transport committee in the House of Commons has published a report on this matter and I have asked my ministerial colleagues to consider its report carefully. You may be interested to see the Chair of the committee’s recent letter to MPs here.
Finally, I did also raise concerns with the Department for Transport and you can read through their response to me here.
Throughout this crisis, both the Department for Transport and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy have been in open dialogue with UK airlines, including BA. These have been through structured and bilateral discussions, at Ministerial and official levels.
I will continue to monitor the situation very closely.
