Defence chiefs slammed for ‘selling out’ Brit workers in £425 million deal for US helicopters
Over 230 jobs face the axe following the MoD's decision to buy off-the-shelf Apache helicopters from America rather than produce them in Britain
DEFENCE chiefs were yesterday accused of “selling out” British workers to clinch a £425million helicopter deal.
More than 230 jobs already face the axe over the MoD’s decision to buy off-the-shelf Apache choppers from America.
Ministers claimed UK industry would get a huge slice of support work for US building operations.
But they have now admitted that the kick-back is worth only 5p in the pound of the overall value of the overall programme.
Furious critics say the new work will go nowhere close to compensating for jobs lost when GKN Aerospace closes its factory in Yeovil, Somerset, this year.
And they accused the government of throwing livelihoods to the wind to drive down the price of the choppers from Boeing to about £8 million each.
Labour MP Kevan Jones, a former defence minister, said: “The government’s Apache deal with the US is a complete sell out.
“If it was the other way round, the Americans wouldn’t stand for such a poor deal, and now British workers are paying the price for this lack of investment in UK defence.
“The UK helicopter industry is being taken apart.”
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The government decided last summer to buy the new aircraft off the shelf to replace the existing fleet to save tens of millions of pounds.
But the Mod stressed the five per cent deal for Brits to get spin-off work applied to the global Apace programme which involves orders for 350 choppers from other countries – giving greater potential.
A spokesman said: “This option represents the very best value for money for the UK taxpayer and presents very significant opportunities for UK business involvement in the Apache programme.”