Dithering Labour is crippling Britain’s defence renaissance

The very cautious approach to procurement that we see coming out of the Government now is really not helpful,” says Trevor Taylor, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a think tank. “Longer term contracts can encourage investment by SMEs: six years rather than one plus one, with an invitation to recompete.” The Ministry of Defence knows what can be fixed, but there’s a long way to go. “If you’re an innovative company do you want to be subjected to going into a competition? There’s a risk your expertise will leak out, it’s costly and it’s time-consuming."