The Balkans, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Iraq: the British armed forces are heavily engaged in a number of theatres worldwide, demonstrating their ability to adapt to modern conflicts. ‘Delivering Security in a changing World’ is the Ministry of Defence watchword. To meet this challenge, modern, efficient, flexible and deployable defence equipment is required–and a defence industrial strategy to match.

The United Kingdom currently spends some €9 bn a year on equipping its armed forces and about €10 bn a year on maintaining and modernising existing stocks. The United Kingdom’s defence budget is very substantial and one of the ministry’s top priorities is to ensure that these resources are used to good effect. Ministry of Defence procurement policy up to the end of 2005 can be summed up in the slogan ‘Best value for money’. Competition was the golden rule.

However, this procurement policy had a damaging effect on United Kingdom industrial capacities. So, at the suggestion of the Minister for Defence Procurement, Lord Drayson, the ministry reviewed its industrial strategy last year. The government published a white paper on the subject in December 2005, ‘Defence Industrial Strategy’, designed to secure the future of industrial and technological capacities deemed to be of strategic importance and to adapt procurement policy to developments in the defence industry.