Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry Luke Pollard has declared \u201ca golden age for UK defence industry,\u201d using a keynote at the Farnborough International Airshow to set out how the Defence Investment Plan is rebuilding British air power while trailing announcements to come on GCAP and the Storm Fighter uncrewed combat aircraft programme.<\/p>\n
Speaking at the Aerospace Global Forum\u2019s Defence Summit, part of this year\u2019s Farnborough programme, the morning after the reshuffle that brought Wes Streeting to the Ministry of Defence, Pollard opened with candour about his own uncertain position, thanking organisers for the chance to address them and \u201capologies for giving you the fright, as you have a minister who has not yet been confirmed in his place speaking on a platform\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve left my phone on loud at the back of the room, so if the PM rings, you\u2019ll all be able to hear it. Don\u2019t worry.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Minister said the new Prime Minister had set out in Downing Street his commitment to defence and to international partners, with NATO commitments topping the list, and pointed to the forces deployed as he spoke, troops in Estonia, Typhoon aircrew in Romania and a carrier strike group in the North Atlantic, providing deterrence against what he called the evolving threat from Russia. The Defence Investment Plan behind them, backed by what he described as a down payment over four years to deliver the 62 recommendations of the Strategic Defence Review, provides \u201ca clear long-term demand signal for industry and importantly for investors as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Pollard said the RAF and the aerospace sector were big winners from the plan, with \u00a331 billion committed to air and space over four years, Typhoon upgraded and sustained well into the 2040s, the ground laid for the first F-35As compatible with NATO\u2019s nuclear mission and providing \u201ca long overdue additional rung on our escalation ladder,\u201d the transport fleet of A400Ms, Voyagers and C-17s sustained, and the jet training system fully recapitalised to ultimately deliver new aircraft for the Red Arrows. On the Global Combat Air Programme he offered only a tease, telling delegates: \u201cspoiler alert, there\u2019s some good news coming on GCAP later today,\u201d while on Storm Fighter, the programme to deliver Europe\u2019s first uncrewed combat jets, he said the new Defence Secretary \u201cwill have an exciting announcement to make on that tomorrow about the timeline for that programme, but no spoilers from me I\u2019m afraid.\u201d<\/p>\n
Threading the industrial argument through the speech, Pollard cited \u00a35 billion for drones and uncrewed systems, up \u00a31 billion on previous plans, the ring-fenced \u00a3400 million annual innovation budget, the \u00a320 million hypersonic target contract awarded to Lockheed Martin UK, 94 per cent of major contracts going to UK-based firms, \u00a3182 million in defence skills and the newly published Defence SME Action Plan, telling business and investors the challenge was straightforward: \u201cDefence knows where it\u2019s going. The demand signal is now very clear.\u201d<\/p>\n
Defence, he argued, is an engine for growth and reindustrialisation providing careers in every nation and region, and he closed on the wider purpose: \u201cWe stand ready to support our allies, grow our economy and keep Britain safe.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry Luke Pollard has declared \u201ca golden age for UK defence industry,\u201d using…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":705351,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-705350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=705350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/705351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=705350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=705350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=705350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}