Graham Leadbitter

The Secretary of State commented on the extensive and continued disruption of passenger and air freight services that has occurred as a consequence of the collapse of the NATS system yesterday. That disruption will not be fully resolved before the weekend. For people and businesses in Scotland and across the UK, this is deeply concerning. It results in lost work time, affecting productivity, and it disrupts time-critical services, including medical flights and cold-chain delivery mechanisms. For example, about £1 million-worth of Scottish salmon is exported through Heathrow alone every single day, and that is just one sector in one of the home nations. That level of disruption, affecting all the home nations and, indeed, many other countries, cannot be allowed to happen again. There is a serious question to be asked about the clear lack of back-up systems, given that this incident lasted for several hours, with an estimated quarter of a million passengers disrupted. I welcome the actions that the Secretary of State set out, but I urge the Department to publish an assessment of the cost of this episode to individuals and businesses as soon as practicable. I am certain that Ministers will have cross-party backing in holding hold NATS to account and ensuring that it has far more robust back-up systems in future.