Government "will not be timed out" amid fears over helicopter contract
Leonardo Helicopters in Yeovil, Somerset, is the only bidder for the UK's £1 billion "new medium helicopter" contract
The Government "will not be timed out", a defence minister has said, amid fears that the UK's last military helicopter factory will close if an order from the Ministry of Defence does not come soon.
Leonardo Helicopters in Yeovil, Somerset, is the only bidder for the UK's £1 billion "new medium helicopter" contract, which was opened for competition in February 2024 by the previous government, but the MoD has still not confirmed a contract with the firm.
Asking an urgent question in the House of Commons on Monday, Yeovil MP Adam Dance said the current bid "will not be sustainable past March of this year" and that, if a contract is not awarded by then, more than 3,000 manufacturing jobs will be lost.
The Liberal Democrat said this would also have a knock-on effect on 12,000 jobs in the regional supply chain, and would mean a £320 million hit to the local economy.
He added: "We also lose our country's ability to produce our own helicopters end to end, here in the UK, at a stage of serious global tensions and insecurity."
Defence readiness and industry minister Luke Pollard said the final decision on the award for the new medium helicopter (NMH) contract would be in the wider defence investment plan (DIP), but did not say when that would be published.
He said: "We are working flat out to deliver the DIP, which will deliver the best kit and technology into the hands of our frontline forces, and importantly, invest in and grow the UK economy.
"It will be published as soon as possible, and is backed by the Government's largest sustained increase in defence investment since the end of the Cold War, spending £270 billion on defence in this Parliament alone."
He added that he spoke to the chief executive of Leonardo UK and the managing director of Leonardo Helicopters earlier on Monday about NMH exports and autonomous helicopters, and "stressed that Leonardo remains an important strategic partner for the MoD".
He later said he was aware that there is a "a period where the prices were guaranteed" for the NMH contract and that that is "something that we are keeping in mind in terms of decisions that we must make".
Conservative former minister Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) said: "This delay, both in the DIP and also in the procurement of these helicopters, has been unexplained and is causing a great deal of concern in my constituency, which is heavily dependent in the south on Yeovil and Yeovilton."
Dr Murrison, who was a defence minister in Rishi Sunak's government, asked the minister to "confirm or refute the rumour that's going around that one of the reasons for the delay is that he is de-scoping the number of airframes, the AW149 airframes", and that it will be "significantly less" than the 24 originally envisaged.
Mr Pollard said the Government was seeking to address the "unfunded equipment plan" inherited from the Conservatives and that the NMH procurement is "bounded by the process".
He added: "We will make a decision. We will not be timed out and will not be altering the contract."
Shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge asked the minister: "Can he confirm reports from multiple sources that the reason the DIP is delayed is because there is now a £28 billion black hole in the MoD budget?"
He added: "By prioritising welfare over going to 3% of defence this Parliament, Labour are paralysing decision-making in the MoD and putting thousands of jobs at risk in our defence industry in Yeovil and across the UK."
Mr Pollard accused Mr Cartlidge of "gaslighting the public" on his own party's record on defence, saying they "left huge swathes of their equipment programme unfunded".
He said: "It is the Conservatives that hollowed out and under-funded our armed forces.
"In their first year in government, they cut defence spending by £2 billion. In their first five years of government they cut defence spending by £12 billion. In their 14 years, they never hit 2.5% of GDP on defence, not once.
"And I remind the House that when he was the shadow defence procurement minister until the election, he left a defence programme that was over-committed and under-funded.
"He left 47 of 49 major defence programmes over-budget and delayed. He left forces families in terrible housing and our war fighters with broken kit.
"We are clearing up his mess while he focuses on gaslighting the public about the Tories' record on defence."