Published: Thursday, 24th July, 2008 10:00
Richard Benyon's Westminster Diary
By Richard Benyon, MP for Newbury
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Newbury MP Richard Benyon
IN RECENT days the skies over West Berkshire have been filled with weird and wonderful aircraft. This is due to a combination of Fairford and Farnborough airshows.
I went to Farnborough last week but it was not for a jolly. I accompanied David Cameron and his Shadow Business and Defence Secretaries, Alan Duncan, and Liam Fox to this showcase event for the defence industry.
I was called up to join this delegation as I had secured a debate in Parliament last year on the Prime Minister’s extraordinary decision to close down the Defence Exports Services Organisation, the body that assists with our defence sales abroad.
Britain is second only to the USA in defence exports. Last year one company, BAE Systems, had £4.1 billion worth of sales and paid around £900m of direct and indirect taxes to the UK Government.
That’s a lot of money for hospitals and schools etc. It was interesting to hear from British companies and some of the thousands of people who work for them, just how bemused they are by Gordon Brown’s detonation of all his predecessors’ work.
As far as the market place is concerned, Britain is no longer in the game.
Today, if a legitimate government, say a Commonwealth country and ally like Australia, wishes to buy equipment, Britain will not be their first point of call.
For those who see the arms trade as a total evil, they should consider this. Other defence manufacturing countries are rubbing their hands with glee at Brown’s folly.
They are stepping in where our Prime Minister feared to tread and many of them are a lot less discerning as to which countries they will sell to. It is also worth remembering how many peaceful innovations have come out of defence engineering. The internet was developed by the US military. Plasma screens were a British innovation from the defence firm now called Qinetic. There are many other examples.
It was pleasing to see the reaction to such a high level delegation (I’m not including myself in that description!) from my Party. It contrasted with the absence of the Prime Minister whose predecessors always attended Farnborough. I noticed a frisson of electricity surrounding Cameron with the public.
I used to help William Hague in the early days of his leadership and there was nothing of the sparkle that accompanies a visit by today’s Conservative Leader.
This is no reflection on William, it’s just a sign of how we live in a different political climate.
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