Lord Soley
Main Page: Lord Soley (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Soley's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(7 years, 9 months ago)
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Earl Howe
The noble Lord is right about the need to maintain high-end skills in this country if we are to maintain our position as a leading player in the aerospace market. The Defence Growth Partnership is one element of this. We have a substantial programme of work already under way to encourage the growth and competitiveness of UK industry. Defence is playing an active part in the cross-government work on the national industrial strategy, which we aim to publish during the next few weeks. It makes sense to allow those programmes to deliver before taking a view on whether any further defence-specific work is needed.
Lord Soley (Lab)
Are the Government aware of the talk among several European Union aircraft manufacturers of both civil and military helicopters and jets that they have a real opportunity to take over production from the UK when it exits Europe? Real discussions are going on in Europe about how production can be transferred from the UK to the European Union. How much thought have the Government given to this?
Earl Howe
Naturally, that is being looked at in the context of the Government’s wider industrial strategy, but the 10-year industrial strategic partnership arrangement we have with Leonardo will act as a driver and influence to ensure that that company focuses on using the skills and expertise available in this country over the medium to long term.