A159 Wildcat Helicopter

Lord Touhig Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend is right. The drive to ensure that Wildcat secures export orders is central to the work that the company and my ministerial colleagues in BEIS are doing. We are working closely with the company to that end.

[Lord Touhig (Lab)]

My Lords, in an uncertain world, Britain needs our Armed Forces to be well equipped, and they need the support of the men and women employed in our defence industries. If the noble Earl agrees with that, will he say what the Government are doing to ensure the highly skilled workforce at GKN is not lost to Britain’s defence? He and I both know we will need them in the years ahead.

[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.