Government's £879m helicopter boost for armed forces

An £879 million helicopter contract announced by the government is expected to support hundreds of armed forces jobs.

Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, Luke Pollard MP, made the announcement at the Army Aviation Centre in Middle Wallop, Hampshire.

The money will go to Boeing Defence UK to keep Army Apache helicopters and RAF Chinook helicopters mission ready, sustaining jobs across the county.

It comes after former Labour defence secretary, Lord George Robertson, said on Tuesday that the UK was "under-prepared" and "Britain's national security and safety is in peril".

Lord Robertson wrote the government's Strategic Defence Review, titled Making Britain Safer, which was a "root-and-branch assessment" of the UK Armed Forces.

In response to his claim that UK's national security was "in peril", Pollard said: "I've got a lot of time for Lord Robertson, and if anyone knows the serious state of armed forces that we inherited, it is him."

He added: "We've decided as a government that we're ending the hollowing out and underfunding that we inherited.

"There's £5bn extra in our defence budget this year, and we're directing more of that increasing defence budget at British companies."

The helicopter contract will support 700 jobs at sites across the UK, including at Middle Wallop and at RAF Odiham in Hook, Hampshire.

It is also going to benefit 500 jobs in the supply chain, including 300 at the Standard Aero facility in Gosport.

Pollard said: "These are iconic helicopters.

"The Apache is the world's very best attack helicopter and the UK flies the most modern variant of it and the Chinooks have been the workhorse of our armed forces both in operations at home and abroad for many, many years."

He added that this announcement was an example of the direction of travel for the armed forces.

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