Aerospace

VIEW FROM WESTMINSTER
“It has been a collaborative process of
agreeing those areas where Government has
a role to play in assisting business”
How Government and industry are uniting to support UK aerospace,
by Michael Fallon MP, Minister of Business and Energy.
The civil aerospace sector offers
huge growth opportunities, but
our continued success as a
leading aerospace nation cannot
be taken for granted.
A couple of years ago, we established
the Aerospace Growth Partnership – the
AGP – to provide a genuine partnership
between business and government that
could remove barriers to growth, boost
exports and grow the number of highvalue
jobs in the UK.
The AGP has transformed the way in
which Government now works with the
UK aerospace industry. It’s certainly not
been about industry laying down a list of
demands to Government; nor has it been
about Government trying to dictate to
industry what it should be doing. Rather,
it has been a collaborative process of
us seeing what industry needs to do to
increase its competitiveness and agreeing
where Government has a role to play.
We promised at Farnborough 2012
to return as soon as possible with a full
Aerospace Strategy.
Following a lot of hard work in the
AGP working groups over the succeeding
months we published the Aerospace
Industrial Strategy ‘Lifting Off’ in March.
Lifting Off sets out an ambitious
programme to keep the UK firmly
at the forefront of world aerospace
manufacturing and ensure that we can
address the challenges of increasing
global competition and changes in
Michael Fallon and the MAA’s
Andrew Mair at the Berlin airshow.
“We’ve agreed to give
industry the long-term
certainty it needs to ensure
that the UK remains one of
the world’s most attractive
locations for aerospace
manufacturing.”
technology. It’s based on ensuring that the UK
has the capabilities to be at the leading edge
of the design, development and production
of wings, engines, aerostructures and
advanced systems. These are the highvalue,
technologically sophisticated parts
of the aircraft where the UK can maintain a
sustainable competitive advantage.
We listened carefully to what industry said
about the difficulties the short-term nature
of public R&D support caused for strategic
planning on projects; also the problems of not
knowing how much public funding might be
available to support private investment. So,
we’ve agreed to give industry the long-term
certainty it needs to ensure that the UK
remains one of the world’s most attractive
locations for aerospace manufacturing.
The AGP recognises that the larger
companies acting alone will not be able
to make the product technology advances
required to sustain the UK’s global market
position. A step change towards an “R&D
supply chain” is required. Yet the market
is not currently creating this with sufficient
urgency. To counter this, the AGP believes
that industry and Government can work
together to foster the development of new
technologies, while the larger companies
provide expertise and mentoring to
encourage innovation from within the
supply chain, especially SMEs.
This is why Government is willing to
invest in the AGP’s National Aerospace
Technology Exploitation Programme.
NATEP builds on the excellent regional
technology exploitation programme
previously run by the Midlands Aerospace
Alliance in the Midlands, and the success
of those projects promises much for the
prospects of the 100 new technologies
NATEP will bring closer to market.
I look forward to seeing suppliers taking
this opportunity to innovate and willl
monitor the progress of the programme
closely through the Aerospace Growth
Partnership.
www.michaelfallon.org.uk
12 MIDLANDS AEROSPACE