Defence Review: some comfort for West Midlands

THE Government’s announcement that it is to strip back defence spending by 8% and completely review the way defence contracts are negotiated will have set alarm bells ringing in factories the length and breadth of the West Midlands.

However, while the cutbacks are severe and undoubtedly some firms will suffer, the Strategic Defence Review does offer some good news for the region.

In his review on the Royal Air Force, Prime Minister David Cameron may have announced the retirement of the Harrier and the cancellation of the Nimrod but he said the fleet of Airbus A400M transports would be augmented.

Many firms in the region are involved in the project, including Ultra Electronics, Redditch based GKN and Dunlop Air Tyres in Birmingham.

Defence Secretary Liam Fox’s plea at the Conservative Party Conference to defence suppliers to develop innovative new products also forms an important part of the review.

Mr Cameron said in his speech yesterday that in addition to saving money, the review had been designed to reflect the changing nature of modern warfare with its increasing shift away from traditional battlefields. He said the Ministry of Defence’s new strategy needed to focus just as strongly on terrorism, cyber warfare and homeland security.

One aspect of this will be the increasing use of Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs) or drones as they are sometimes called.

Sutton Coldfield based Cubewano could well benefit from this. The award-winning company manufactures the world’s most advanced small engines and its air cooled engines are primarily intended to meet the demanding requirements of the UAV market.

There was also good news for RAF Cosford with hundreds of jobs at the Shropshire base – the headquarters of the Defence College of Aeronautical Engineering – saved as the Government announced it was shelving plans for a £14bn Defence Technical College at St Athan in the Vale of Glamorgan.

Had the project gone ahead it would have seen jobs at Cosford shifted to the new site by 2014.

The Government postponed plans for the new college because it was not satisfied that contractors could deliver an affordable facility within the prescribed timescale.