450 BAE staff face compulsory axe

Unite said the jobs were being lost as a direct result of Government decisions in last year’s defence review, which led to the company warning of almost 2,500 posts being cut.

BAE Systems said today that around 2,000 workers will leave voluntarily or move to other jobs in the company, but there will be 450 compulsory lay-offs at several military sites across the UK, including Woodford, near Manchester, Farnborough in Hampshire, RAF Kinloss in Scotland, RAF Cottesmore in Lincolnshire and Brough in East Yorkshire.

The cuts were blamed on decisions such as the scrapping of the Nimrod and the accelerated retirement of the Harrier aircraft.

Unite national officer Ian Waddell said: “The blame for these job losses lies firmly at the door of Defence Secretary Liam Fox and the rest of the Tory-led Government.”

He added that “short-sighted, financially driven decisions” taken in the review were “illustrated by the reality of hundreds of highly skilled, economically valuable men and women losing their jobs”.

“BAE Systems has done everything possible to avoid sacking people, but the enormity of these cuts is such that compulsory redundancies are now inevitable.

“There is a serious capability gap which the UK’s armed forces now face, proving that there was nothing strategic about the review.”

Mr Waddell called for the defence review to be reopened and argued that any review should be seen in the light of the impact on the whole UK economy.”