Airbus Defence and Space UK Chairman Ben Bridge Talks Re-Arming Britain
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Well, I think we're at an interesting point. And, you know, we're in a year where a strategic defence review is going to be coming out soon, we hope. There'll be a defence industrial strategy and the appointment of a national armaments director. So there are lots of important things happening where we'll get some clarity on how the UK and the government feel about defence and about its defence strategy.

industry and certainly a lot of the rhetoric if you like around that is reflecting not only the importance of defence and the need to invest in defence and spend more on defence but to do that in the UK so I think this is the year where we and the UK defence industry

We'll hope to see those words turning into action. So you think it's a pivotal year then? Are you doing anything to ramp up in the UK now? Or are you awaiting all of those reviews and the contracts to arrive? So we have a sizeable presence as Airbus Defence and Space UK here already. We have about three and a half thousand people.

Most of those are across two sites, Stevenage and Portsmouth, designing and building satellites. And we're well set now for what we need to do. The question, I guess, will be what further opportunities or requirements will come from the government. And we'll be ready to ramp up, as you say, and ready to increase capacity.

and invest ourselves if that were to happen. Do you think that the UK can keep up with European defence spending commitments? Well, John Healy has said recently that he wants to be part of that increased spend and those various economic commitments.

mechanisms that the European Union is putting into place. I guess we'll hear more of that at the forthcoming UK-EU summit. But no, the UK is very well placed to be, as it always has been, a central part of European security and defence. That's more of a testament to how little others are spending though in some senses that the UK is so high in the NATO pack of spending.

Well, I think all countries at this moment are looking at how much they need to spend and most countries are talking about increasing their spend. When do you think that we'll see new money flow from the UK government and specifically for you at Airbus, when do you think that money will start flowing? Well, they're talking about increasing the spend of GDP to 2.5% by 2027.

We know that Trump has asked NATO members to go between 3.5% and 5% is what we're hearing. So we'll see how the UK responds to that. And I guess as part of the UK-EU summit and then the NATO summit in June, we might hear some more detail from the UK and other countries. So it sounds like you're poised, but there's not much detail.

We're poised and the detail and the direction seems encouraging and we look forward to hearing from the Defence Review more detail. In terms of the capabilities, obviously, you know, the rhetoric, as you mentioned, and the idea of rebuilding and building up defence spending is there, but then the capacity and the capabilities is...

then do take time. What we are seeing, though, from Bloomberg data is that backlogs, we know, for the big defence companies, yours included, in the US, in the UK and in Europe, are increasing. Are your backlogs rising here in the UK as there is more pressure now to build and deliver? Not particularly. As I say, we're well poised to deliver what we're already working on, both on the defence and indeed the commercial side, and we're ready

and set to invest more if that's required with future orders or commitments from the UK. I mean, what we have in the UK at the moment is a fantastic capability in space. You know, for 50 years, Airbus Defence and Space has been here designing, building, even operating satellites. For 20 years, we operated the UK Skynet satellite communication system. And that's something that really we believe should be

And if the UK at this time doubles down and invests itself in that capability with it bringing requirements to UK factories and UK companies, not just ours, we have a supply chain of something like 2,000 companies, half of which are SMEs.

We've launched many initiatives to encourage smaller companies to get involved in space and so on. And we really see ourselves at Airbus Defence and Space UK as a convener for success in the UK. What does a war-ready Britain look like from your perspective? The Prime Minister Keir Starmer has vowed to return Britain to war-fighting readiness.

So, space is at the centre of today's warfighting capabilities. Some people refer to it as the ultimate high ground. It's the place that you operate from, where you see more and where, of course, you can communicate most effectively from. So, certainly part of any investment in becoming war-ready would need to be to

invest in that space capability and to make sure that we maintain our own independent operations, our own independent ability to design, build and operate satellites, take our own view of the threats that are out there. And you do that by maintaining a capability yourself, not buying off the shelf from other countries. How can you free your team from time-consuming office tasks? Amazon Business empowers leaders to not only streamline purchasing, but better support their teams.

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