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Tom Williams: Don’t let Brexit stop UK aerospace taking off

Tom Williams: Before the referendum vote, Airbus was one of the first and most vocal opponents of Brexit: AFP/Getty Images
Tom Williams: Before the referendum vote, Airbus was one of the first and most vocal opponents of Brexit: AFP/Getty Images

There can have been few times in recent history more significant for the nation’s economic future. Following Theresa May’s triggering of Article 50, the scene has been set for Brexit.

Since the UK and the EU have made their positions on the transition arrangements clear, we are looking forward with confidence. Both sides have said they want an orderly exit and that the rights of citizens are a priority. Industry agrees, and believes competitiveness is the key to success.

Before the referendum vote, Airbus was one of the first and most vocal opponents of Brexit among major industrial businesses. Our concerns about the possibility of barriers being erected between our operations in the UK and mainland Europe remain.

But we have reiterated our commitment to our activities here, where we employ 15,000 highly skilled and productive workers. The company’s future investments will inevitably depend very much on the economic environment in which we operate.

That is because Airbus’s business model relies on our ability to move products, people and ideas around Europe without any restrictions.

Wings made in Wales are shipped to Toulouse in the south of France and Hamburg in Germany, where the final assembly lines for our aircraft such as the A320, A350 and A380 are based. Wings for single-aisle aircraft are shipped to Tianjin in China or the US, while other parts arrive from Germany or Spain.

Such technical innovation is of course something at which Britain excels. Our aerospace industry has a proud history, from the early days of aviation through to the graceful Concorde supersonic airliner and the mould-breaking Harrier jump jet, to the Mars Rovers and modern, efficient passenger jets made of the composite materials of today.

We can continue to play to our strengths. But this will only work if we can retain our vital High Value Design (HVD) capability — the kind of vision that created such well-known aircraft as the Spitfire.

So what do I mean by High Value Design? It can simply be defined as the skills, expertise, capabilities and infrastructure required to imagine, define and integrate a whole aircraft or complex systems, some of which we share with our industrial partners in France, Germany and Spain. A recent report by consultants Roland Berger demonstrated that such a capability is essential for any nation seeking to be positioned at the forefront of the aerospace sector.

Some of these skills are already degrading across UK aerospace as a generation of engineers prepares to retire. According to the Aerospace Technology Institute, UK HVD capabilities fell by around 30% between 1990 and 2015.

But today we still do hold a leading position. Further erosion must not be allowed to happen or we risk becoming a “build-to-print” nation, merely able to manufacture components to others’ specifications.

The key will be in increasing our engineering workforce skills and upgrading the industrial infrastructure. We therefore have to protect and nurture our manufacturing design expertise, defining what the future really looks like and how this can be translated into economic growth and skilled jobs.

The UK’s level of participation in the next generation of aircraft programmes will be strongly linked to our HVD capabilities. Today, it is hard to predict how the next generation of passenger jets will be made and with what materials.

As an engineer my entire life, I’m willing to bet that the way we design and manufacture will change massively from Airbus’s first endeavours nearly 50 years ago. Our knowledge is developing too quickly. Initiatives including the Aerospace Growth Partnership have brought government and industry together to produce powerful results which have encouraged the aerospace sector since it launched in 2010.

There are similar hopes for the fledgling Space Growth Partnership and the Defence Growth Partnership.

Meanwhile, the Government consultation on industrial strategy, which has just closed for responses, is a welcome attempt by the Prime Minister to put industry back at the top of the economic agenda.

With Westminster in purdah, we now have to wait until after the general election to find out what ministers believe is the way forward.

Unlike some who campaigned hard for Brexit, what we believe the nation needs has nothing to do with preserving some utopian image of our past. But it is most definitely about building on our proud heritage to secure our industrial future.

Tom Williams is chief operating officer of Airbus Commercial Aircraft