A plea for our aviation in Prestwick
It’s been another busy month in Parliament, with legislation coming before the House on Trade, Agriculture, Immigration and the Licensing of Medicines.
However, the issues regarding the UK Government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic continue.
Most importantly, England is coming out of lockdown far too quickly without a coherent Test, Trace and Isolate system.
When complete test data was finally published last month, it became clear that England had 80,000 more Covid cases than previously reported - 50% higher than that on which the Prime Minister had based his decisions about easing Lockdown.
Until then, Public Health teams, such as in Leicester, had not been receiving the results of Covid tests from the UK’s commercial labs, run by accountancy firm Deloitte, as, bizarrely, it turns out the UK Government failed to specify that in the contracts!
Meanwhile, the UK’s supposedly
world-beating App to identify casual contacts has been abandoned. While most European countries quickly changed from a centralised approach, the UK Government ploughed ahead with a system designed to harvest and hold large amounts of personal data; ignoring people’s concerns and the fact that it didn’t work on iPhones!
After spending £12 million the UK is back at the drawing board but will hopefully now take up the model used by most other European countries.
With the Covid pandemic having a profound and prolonged impact on the aviation and aerospace industries, redundancies are unfortunately looming at several companies in the Prestwick aerospace campus. I used my question at Prime Minister’s Questions to call for financial support to protect jobs and invest in a green aviation recovery.
Encouraging airlines to replace older aircraft with newer, greener models would not only help secure aerospace manufacturing but contribute to a more ecologically sustainable aviation industry.
The PM stated his government are working on the issue so I have since written to him to ask for further details given how important aviation and aerospace are here in Ayrshire.
My next virtual surgery is on Thursday 23 rd July between 3pm and 4pm for Kyle villages. Contact 01294 311 160 or philippa.whitford.mp@ parliament.uk to book.