MPS and union leaders have urged Aerospace companies to consult workers before shifting jobs abroad.

Yesterday, as Rolls-Royce announced it had secured £12billion-worth of orders for its Trent 900 aero engines safeguarding more than 7,000 jobs including some at Barnoldswick, the Commons Trade and Industry Committee held a hearing into recent job losses.

John Quigley, National Officer for the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union, said too often job losses were announced as a "fait accompli."

He said the unions would rather be consulted in advance to try and avoid job losses and transfers of work abroad rather than vainly chasing a remedy to a decision already taken.

While he admitted that Aerospace firms in general were prone to announcing secret decisions without consultation with their workers, he said that BAE Systems, which has two major military aircraft factories in Lancashire facing redundancies at the moment was better than most at talking to and listening to employees and unions.

Chorley MP Lindsay Hoyle, a member of the committee, said that the secrecy of the companies made life almost impossible for their staff. And he said that the procedures of the big firms meant that "workers are being faced with a fame of Russian roulette where every chamber except one contains a bullet."