---

Defence Industry (Lancashire)

May I say what a pleasure it is to have the opportunity to contribute to this timely debate under your chairmanship, Mr. Streeter? I congratulate the hon. Member for South Ribble (Mr. Borrow) on securing the debate. I pass on the apologies of my hon. Friends the Members for North Devon (Nick Harvey) and for Dunfermline and West Fife (Willie Rennie), both of whom are unable to be here today. As will become obvious, I do not share the analysis proposed by the hon. Member for South Ribble. However, both of us hold firm on the importance of Lancashire and the north-west of England as a prime region for defence. Many thousands of families across the region have given unstintingly of their efforts, being involved in iconic defence industry products such as aircraft, which are of particular interest to him and me, and others. It will a sad day if the historic importance of Lancashire and the wider north-west is forgotten. I hope that that never happens under any Government. I shall not indulge in internecine warfare about who said what in which leaflet. I am at a disadvantage in that I do not have copies of the said periodicals with me. That may be some relief to you, Mr. Streeter. However, I shall speak on the subject of the debate and put a number of questions to the Minister. I was asked to speak for my party today as a Member whose constituency is in Cheshire—it is just over the border from Lancashire—and who represents the many hundreds of highly trained skilled engineers and technicians who work at the BAE Systems Woodford site and who live in my constituency. As the hon. Member for South Ribble said, like many other sites, Woodford has a proud history, involving the RAF and the very best of British engineering skills. Those skills go back for many generations, to the Lancaster bomber of the second world war, the Vulcan from the cold war, the first Nimrod, the MR2 and the MRA4 programme. I have been fortunate enough to visit that site on many occasions and am well aware of the fantastic job done by the whole team, both management and unions. The expertise of our defence sectors workers is world-renowned, and it is on their behalf, as well as on behalf of my party, that I speak today. Today's debate is of interest to not just those fortunate enough to live in Lancashire, but the general public as a whole. The Defence Analytical Services Agency puts total nationwide employment in the industry at around 300,000. Direct employment stands at 155,000, with a further 145,000 jobs in the supply chain. In total, the defence industry accounts for 10 per cent. of manufacturing jobs in the UK. For every job created in the defence industry, about 1.6 jobs are created elsewhere in the economy. It is estimated that £100 million investment in the defence industry would create 1,885 jobs throughout the UK economy, 726 of which would be in the defence industry. For that very reason, there are more small and medium-sized enterprises in the UK defence industry than in the French, German, Italian and Spanish industries combined. As things stand, more than 65,000 jobs in the UK are currently supported by defence exports. I was delighted to read recently that the Minister, who is in his usual place today, lavished praise on the defence industry in Lancashire, and he was right to do so. I am sure that every Member present today will testify that Lancashire has a world-scale, world-class defence industry. The combined turnover of the north-west aerospace companies is some £7 billion a year, one third of the UK's total aerospace sector, which itself is the second largest in the world. The MOD's own statistics puts defence spending-dependent employment in the north-west at 14,000 people, which seems a little on the conservative side. An article in the Financial Times last year reported that some 1,000 companies employ 60,000 people in the north-west. Perhaps in his response, the Minister might like to address that particular issue and clear up the confusion regarding the figures.