- Failing to nurture ‘sovereign capability’ risks weakening UK at critical moment
- Government defence review leaves industry uncertain about future backing
- Airbus boss Ben Bridge urges Britain to back its own space sector
Airbus has urged Labour to back Britain’s military satellite sector as a ‘springboard’ for multi-billion pound exports.
And the Government was warned that failing to nurture its ‘sovereign capability’ in such a key area risked weakening the UK at a critical moment.
Aerospace firm Airbus has teamed up with America’s Northrop Grumman in a competition to operate part of the UK’s next ‘SkyNet 6’ programme to provide secure satellite communications to the military.
But it faces competition from US firm Lockheed Martin and France’s Thales.
Meanwhile, a government defence review has left the defence industry uncertain about future state backing.
Plea: Airbus has urged Labour to back Britain’s military satellite sector
Ben Bridge, chairman of Airbus Defence and Space UK, urged Britain to back its own space sector.
The former Royal Navy helicopter pilot said: ‘The advantage of having a sovereign capability is that you can design, build, operate and then change – we’ve seen in Ukraine the importance of responding to an emerging environment.
‘The UK is a strong space power. We have a seat at the table when it comes to talking about space war, space law and these other topics. We all interact with 40-odd satellites a day.
‘It is in our daily lives an important topic, as a military topic it’s becoming more important. I would hope to see the UK wanting to keep that position.’ Airbus is based in France but has employees in the UK, operating satellite manufacturing sites in Stevenage and Portsmouth.
Bridge said Britain should ‘recognise and nurture and consolidate its space capability for the sake of jobs and the value that it has within the UK’ and to ‘export great British technology, capability and products’.
That would ‘bring value and wealth back into the UK but also you then have that soft power benefit as well’.
It comes weeks after Germany awarded Airbus the contract of its next generation military satellite system.
Martin Rowse, campaign director for Airbus Defence and Space, said: ‘In an uncertain world you don’t want to give away sovereign capability, you don’t want to weaken yourself.’
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