Fears are installing over the future of a helicopter manufacturing facility in Somerset as complication controls the standing of a crucial Government agreement.
Close to 3,000 work at the Yeovil factory might go to danger if preachers fall short to push in advance with the supposed New Medium Helicopter (NMH) purchase, which is planned to change older Puma designs.
While the Ministry of Defence (MoD) disclosed last month that the existing supply of RAF Puma helicopters will certainly be retired in March, it has yet to honor a ₤ 1bn agreement to change the outbound fleet.
Leonardo, the Italian defence giant in charge of running the manufacturing facility in Somerset, is presently the single prospective buyer associated with the NMH purchase.
However, the hold-up is sustaining worries that minsters might ditch the NMH order totally and use various other helicopter kinds, diving Leonardo’s Somerset website right into dilemma.
It comes as the Government assesses the future of superior army jobs as component of a continuous protection evaluation.
The Unite union stated its General Secretary Sharon Graham just recently consulted with Defence Secretary John Healey and advised him to push in advance with the order.
She stated: “We have had the Government’s statement of intent for the defence sector. Now we need to see some action.
“These are highly skilled workers and a further delay in awarding this contract would have disastrous consequences for the long term future of this factory.”
Responding to inquiries regarding the order in Parliament, Defence Procurement Minister Maria Eagle stated no choice looms.
She stated that while there are no strategies to customize the NMH tender, an evaluation procedure will certainly proceed via following year, after which an agreement will certainly be granted based on Government authorization.
However, a market resource stated issue is installing that the MoD might suggest utilising helicopters such as the Chinook for a bigger variety of goals.
That would certainly permit the NMH job to be junked and cash drawn away to various other programs, assisting Rachel Reeves’s efforts to save billions of pounds throughout Government divisions.
The resource stated: “There is no way they can procure everything they want to procure.
“So the question is, will the NMH order even happen at all? With the defence review coming, nobody really knows anything.
“It would be a ridiculous stretch to substitute Chinooks for Pumas to fly three people around, but that’s one of the possibilities and it fits with the idea of reducing the number of helicopter types.”
In revealing last month that the Pumas – which have actually remained in solution given that the very early 1970s – would certainly be taken out, the MoD additionally put an order for 6 H145 Jupiter helicopters from Airbus that will certainly take control of their function in Cyprus and Brunei.
