Author Archives: GovWorldMag

Andy McDonald MP, Labour’s Shadow Transport Secretary, commenting on the warning from the National Air Traffic Services (NATS) over airspace, said:

“The Government’s approach to aviation has been to rely on autopilot while they have a chat among themselves. Labour has been pressing for action for years on aviation safety, drones and airspace modernisation: the Government say they are in listening mode but it seems they’re not listening to anyone in the industry.

“Today’s warning from NATS is yet another example of the Government’s failure to act and comes as uncertainty over Brexit is threatening the UK aviation industry. The Government must listen to what NATS and the industry more broadly are warning and take action to protect and modernise UK airspace.

“The Government must also urgently provide clarity on our post-Brexit relationship with the European agencies that maintain aviation safety standards and through which our air service agreements are secured. If the Government continue to fail to address the challenges facing the aviation industry, the UK’s connectivity, competitiveness and ability to trade with be severely undermined.”

John McDonnell MP, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, commenting on the latest Public Sector Finance figures published this morning by the ONS, which show that £128.5 billion was added to the national debt since June 2016 and public sector net borrowing increased by £2 billion last month compared with June 2016, said:

“These figures reveal the continued failure of Philip Hammond and the Conservatives. Seven years of Tory cuts have left our economy weaker with falling wages, yet the deficit has not been eliminated two years after they claimed it would be, and the national debt continues to rise.

“The Chancellor should stop handing out massive tax giveaways to big businesses and the super-rich, and instead give our hard-pressed public sector workers a pay rise; so we can end the travesty in our country of nurses having to rely on food banks.

“Only a Labour Government will set out a serious plan for the public finances with strategic investment underpinned by our Fiscal Credibility Rule, to help build the high wage, high skill economy of the future for the many not the few.”