Explosive issues

Workers at the Powell Works,

Wrexham, during WWI.

By Christopher Booker
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Is it wise for an army to buy its shells abroad?
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A decision announced last week means that the explosives needed for the bullets, shells and missiles used by Britain's Armed Forces, including components for our nuclear weapons, will no longer be manufactured in Britain.
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Most will probably be made in France, in plants part-owned by the French state, so that our forces would no longer be able to operate without French government approval. Such were the startling implications of the announcement by BAE Systems that it is to close its explosives manufacturing facilities in Bridgwater, Somerset, andChorley, Lancashire, with the loss of 200 jobs.
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These were among 18 Royal Ordnance plants privatised by Michael Heseltine in1985, with 18,000 employees. Twenty years later only three remain, including that now to be closed in Bridgwater, which not only makes rocket fuel and other explosives but also the unique charges used in Britain's nuclear missiles.

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Although neither BAE Systems nor the Ministry of Defence has said where the explosives will in future be made, Prospect, the professional union with many members working in these plants, was quick to warn that this would leave Britain "dangerously dependent on foreign suppliers".

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Similar concerns were voiced in 2002 by the Commons defence committee, which warned that only by keeping explosives manufacturing capacity in the UK would we be able to retain an independent foreign policy.

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In fact the latest move was foreshadowed in 1998 when the French Senate approved a law allowing the setting up of a new company jointly owned by Royal Ordnance and France's state-owned Société Nationale des Poudres et Explosifs (SNPE), which French MPs were told would create hundreds of new jobs. The new law was necessary because, since the French Revolution, the state had a monopoly on explosives manufacture in France.

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BAE Systems is already in partnership with another French company, GIAT, to produce guns and ammunition in France for the next generation of British armoured vehicles. When the Army's current SA80 rifle is phased out, it seems likely that the replacement will be made in Belgium, which refused to supply Britain with shells during the 1991 Gulf war because it disapproved of Britain's involvement.

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Politically, the most sensitive issue of all could be transferring outside theUK the source of the highly-specialised explosives used in our nuclear weapons. As debate begins over a replacement for Britain's Trident missiles, the defence secretary Dr John Reid last week emphasised that, although we buy the missiles from the USA, we retain complete control over their use. Whether that would remain true if vital components had to be imported from France is much less certain.

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Alerted by this column, Gerald Howarth, the Tory defence spokesman, is tabling a series of urgent questions to the MoD on the implications of this decision. "Theprospect of Britain being unable to supply its Armed Forces with explosives and ammunition and being dependent on other countries," he warns, "is extremely alarming."

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