Securing Prosperity: A Strategic Vision for the UK Defence Sector

Sept. 13, 2013 defense-aerospace.com


The British government launched a new, joint government and industry vision for growth in the UK Defence sector on the opening day of the DSEi exhibition in London.

“Securing Prosperity – a strategic vision for the UK Defence Sector” identifies the sector’s core strengths and sets out how government and industry will work together to maximise the UK’s competitive advantage to boost British jobs, trade and growth.

This strategic vision for the Defence sector has been developed by the Defence Growth Partnership (DGP) – a forum set up by the Prime Minister in 2012 in which the government, the UK’s top Defence companies, the sector trade association and SMEs are working together for growth.

The Defence Growth Partnership currently involves: Babcock, BAE Systems,Cobham, EADS, Finmeccanica, General Dynamics, Hewllet-Packard, Lockheed Martin, Marshall, MBDA, Qinetiq, Raytheon, Rolls Royce, Serco, Thales, Trade Association ADS, The Department for Business Innovation and Skills, The Ministry of Defence.

The government's economic policy objective is to achieve 'strong, sustainable and balanced growth that is more evenly shared across the country and between industries.'

It set four ambitions in the ‘Plan for Growth’, published at Budget 2011:
-- to create the most competitive tax system in the G20
-- to make the UK the best place in Europe to start, finance and grow a business
-- to encourage investment and exports as a route to a more balanced economy
-- to create a more educated workforce that is the most flexible in Europe.

Work is underway across government to achieve these ambitions, including progress on more than 250 measures as part of the Growth Review. Developing an Industrial Strategy gives new impetus to this work by providing businesses, investors and the public with more clarity about the long-term direction in which the government wants the economy to travel.

Full text