Labour, Lib Dems and UKIP put thousands of West jobs at risk
Labour, Liberal Democrat and UKIP MEPs have today threatened thousands of Western region jobs at Airbus by voting to continue forcing non-European airlines to pay an emissions levy whenever they fly to or from the EU, the region's Conservative MEPs have warned. The European Parliament's Environment committee, on which South West Conservative MEP Julie Girling is a Member, was voting on plans to continue exempting non-European airlines from its Emissions Trading Scheme (named the 'Stop the Clock proposal). However, an alliance of Labour and Liberal Democrat MEPs was able to reject the plan, and voted in favour of charging US, Indian and Chinese airlines a levy for every flight. These main trading partners have all threatened retaliatory measures, with the US Congress already passing a resolution condemning the scheme. However, the Chinese government is likely to respond most harshly to the levy. It had been planning to unfreeze an order of 27 Airbus A330 aircraft that was put on hold due to the prospect of the charges, and it had originally been planning to confirm an order for a further 150 Airbus jets at the end of this month (see notes to editors). Airbus provides 4,000 high-value jobs at its Filton plant on the outskirts of Bristol, including 2,000 engineers working on projects including wing design and integration for civil aircraft. Following the vote, Mrs Girling said "Once again in the European Parliament Labour, Lib Dems and UKIP are failing to stand up for the interests of Britain abroad and failing to stand up to secure jobs back home. Liberal Democrat MEPs even turned out in force to defy a call from Nick Clegg to support this proposal.Until we can find an international agreement on airline emissions we should not be risking retaliation from major economic partners for the sake of ideology. Labour and Liberal Democrats have behaved extremely irresponsibly with this vote. As ever, UKIP MEPs didn't bother to show up and defend British industry. They talk a lot about defending British jobs and sticking up for the South West, but when it came down to it they couldn't be bothered to turn up and vote."
Mrs Girling took to Twitter at the close of the meeting to share her frustrations Tweeting; "UKIP empty chair at votes on aviation ETS. Lost by 1. 100s of 1000s of jobs inc at airbus now at risk #uselessUKIP pic.twitter.com/eC1HDL19OL"
Today's vote in the committee was extremely tight, with 29 MEPs voting in favour of the proposal and 29 against - meaning it fell. Liberal Democrat MEP Chris Davies defied a call from Nick Clegg yesterday evening and even brought along two other LibDem MEPs not on the committee - Bill Newton Dunn and Andrew Duff - to swing the vote. Labour MEP Linda McAvan also voted to reject the plans and apply the levy to the airlines. The UKIP MEP on the committee Paul Nuttall did not show up, even though he would have been able to swing the vote in favour of British business.
ENDS Notes to Editors:
At Filton, over 4000 people are employed in the design office and in business support roles such as procurement, finance and customer service. Core activities at Filton include the design, engineering and support for Airbus wings, fuel systems and landing gear integration. Teams also work on systems, structures, and aerodynamics research, development and test facilities. More than 2,000 engineers at Filton are involved in a range of areas, including wing integration, flight physics, structures and systems.
Information on the Chinese Airbus orders: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/19/us-airbus-group-china-idUSBREA2I06E20140319
Information on Airbus jobs in the UK: http://www.airbus.com/company/worldwide-presence/airbus-in-uk/