Ministers have confirmed that a decision on the Ministry of Defence’s New Medium Helicopter (NMH) programme will not be taken immediately, with the outcome now tied to the forthcoming Defence Investment Plan, as MPs warned in the Commons that continued delay could have consequences for Leonardo’s helicopter operation in Yeovil.
The issue was raised during an urgent question by Liberal Democrat MP Adam Dance, who pressed the government to clarify the status of the £1 billion procurement and address concerns surrounding the future of the long-established Yeovil site, which has been associated with UK helicopter manufacturing for more than a century.
Responding for the government, defence minister Luke Pollard said the NMH programme remained a priority but stressed that a final decision would be taken only once the Defence Investment Plan is published. He told MPs that the programme, first announced in March 2021 with competition opening in February 2024, would be considered alongside wider equipment priorities and budget decisions. “It is something that remains on my priority list,” Pollard said, adding that the contract award would be determined through the Defence Investment Plan, which he said would be published as soon as possible and was backed by what the government describes as the largest sustained increase in defence investment since the end of the Cold War.
Pollard also confirmed that he had spoken earlier in the day with senior leadership at Leonardo UK, including the company’s chief executive and the managing director of Leonardo Helicopters, describing the firm as an important strategic partner for the Ministry of Defence.
He said discussions had covered NMH exports as well as autonomous helicopter development, and emphasised that the government intended to continue constructive engagement with the company and with trade unions. “Leonardo remains an important strategic partner for the MoD,” he told the House, pointing to its role not only in helicopter manufacture but also in servicing, electronics and emerging autonomous technologies.
Dance warned, however, that uncertainty around the programme was creating pressure at Yeovil, noting that Leonardo has been the sole bidder for the NMH contract for more than a year. He said the company had indicated that the current bid would not be sustainable beyond March and argued that further delay risked significant industrial consequences. “If this contract is not awarded by then, we will lose over 3,000 manufacturing jobs in Yeovil, support for over 12,000 jobs in the regional supply chain, and the £320 million that Leonardo contributes to local GDP,” he said. Those figures were cited by MPs during the exchange, reflecting concerns raised publicly by Leonardo’s leadership, but were not endorsed by ministers.
Other MPs from across the House echoed the industrial and strategic concerns.
Labour MP Calvin Bailey said the issue went beyond employment alone, arguing that the future of sovereign helicopter capability and long-term skills development was also at stake. He noted that the NMH programme had existed within what he described as an unfunded equipment plan inherited from the previous government, adding that difficult decisions were now unavoidable as part of a wider effort to stabilise defence investment and prioritisation. Former defence procurement minister James Cartlidge said he had deliberately weighted the NMH tender toward UK rotary-wing work and exportability when launching the competition in February 2024, warning that those aims would be undermined if the programme were cancelled.
Pollard declined to commit to a timetable or to separate the NMH decision from the Defence Investment Plan, saying he was not in a position to provide a definitive answer during the exchange. “The NMH decision will be made as part of the Defence Investment Plan that will be announced shortly, so I won’t be able to give him an answer today,” he said, while reiterating the government’s intention to continue engagement with Leonardo and to recognise the importance of Yeovil to the wider UK defence industrial ecosystem.
No immediate replacement for Puma2 whose pilots and MaC have been binned prematurely. An amazingly talented and experienced group of airmen and women. Sacrificed at the alter of civil service ineptitude and short sightedness.
Gapping things is very expensive as regeneration is eye wateringly expensive once the skills and knowledge have faded.
Everything is short termism with Uk Governments now, short term choices for quick headlines and votes ignoring the longer term impacts and realities. If it doesn’t get us a win now then it can be the next parliament problem so it’s not our problem.
You couldn’t make this shit up could you- quite, quite laughable.
Must be a masterpiece of a DIP with all this delay.
They had to go back to the drawing board in mid-December after Starmer rejected the original plan for being £28bn over budget (or Healey wanted a budget increase but didn’t get it).
Expect “NATO’s leading member, with the largest sustained increase in defence spending since the Cold War” to announce further defence cuts, leading by example as ever.
Maybe we’ll gap Trident next?
All these billions over/under being quoted. Is anyone checking if they’re actually getting value for money on all their spends?
The Govt just rolls out excuse after excuse not to spend money on defense. It’s gotten beyond a joke now.
“The UK is on a war footing” righty ho.
As usual we have muddled through with Chinook so now in their minds we don’t need anything else.
That’s about the size of it I suppose..
‘You have Chinook for the troops and Wildcat for the officer airborne taxi service, you’ve got on fine without Puma, so explain why you need it????’.
To be fair, it seems as if an order of a couple of dozen AW149’s would only be putting off the inevitable for a few years anyway.
Setting up an assembly line for a few dozen helicopters, with zero export potential doesn’t seem like a great use of scarce defence funds, it seems like another black hole leading to a dead end.
There’s zero chance of exports, Merlin is running out of steam and Wildcat was dead on arrival.
If we were ordering 50 AW149’s for the RAF and chasing down Yeovil built exports, then it would be viable.
As it is, its a quite understandable effort by MP’s to keep a factory open for a few more years, at the considerable cost of limited defence funds.
We simply don’t require enough to warrant the huge expense of assembling, operating and supporting a handful of medium helicopters.
The government refuse to increase defence spending and expand the armed forces, so thats that really…
Word is Norway are interested in both AW101s and AW149s. So Yeovil could be secured for some time, especially with the rumoured Proteus order.
Annddd no one here is the least bit surprised by this, the program which has been around a while and should have been decided a long time ago and was repeatedly pushed down the road is pushed down the road again. “DIP”
Leonardo has warned for a while that the NMH is the only thing keeping Yeovil going, but the unserious successive Governments will push out rhetoric on resilience and improving the industrial base, whilst content starving and losing the key parts of the industrial base, it’s not a great advertisement for defence companies to invest in the U.K. to then have to try and win contracts elsewhere to support U.K. defence jobs as the U.K. refuses to invest properly.
Treasury – if you can do without Puma for years why do you need a replacement, MRSS will get canned by the same logic if NMH goes.
Needs a repeat of Flt Lt Pollock to scare the wits out of Londoners, city folk and the blob. An FGR4 at rooftop height across our cities to remind them the RAF still exists – just!
Geez if this is a priority then how many years for anything deemed important but non vital.
“forthcoming Defence Investment Plan“…
“long-overdue Defence Investment Plan” would be more accurate 🤷🏻♂️
No Rush by HMG 🐌
After due consideration I think we as a nation may need to start shutting the hell on the geopolitical stage..because we have a big mouth and our stick is getting smaller and smaller.. and big brother NATO seems to have gone on Permanent holiday..unless our government grows some and buys a bigger stick.
Bit of an aside but i read somewhere that Germany is going to be transferring it old Naval Lynx’s to Ukraine, i think up to 26 of them? There could be some potential upgrade rework for Yeovil there and what about from other Lynx/Wildcat operators too, like Korea, Philippines, others?
Telegraph report we are preparing to buy Black Hawk.
The Telegraph are reporting that Reform claim that’s the plan, not sure how credible that is though.
Indeed. Would be a turn up for the book though. Yeovil get Norwegian orders for Merlin and AW149 and we buy a larger number of cheaper Puma replacements.
Even Poland is making the AW149. Is that an option?
No idea. I suspect what’s happening is that the govt hope to persuade Leonardo to keep Yeovil open with orders for Norwegian Merlins for their T26s and AW149 and the promise of UK orders for Proteus for the RN. Meanwhile we can save money by buying Black Hawk. I think the argument is that ‘you’ve seen one battlefied helicopter, you’ve seen them all’ so you buy on price not bells and whistles.
Yep, it seems that the MOD just doesn’t have the money to accept the Leonardo tender, and the government won’t provide it. So the choice has come down to cancelling NMH completely or buying a few probably refurbished UH-60 Black Hawk’s deemed surplus by nations serious about their defence. Sadly it looks like helicopter manufacture in the UK has ended, and most of the Yeovil site will soon close.
Starmer’s speech of 2 June 2025: “”Britain Must Be Ready For War”
Reeves’ speech of 24 July 2025: “We’re on a war footing”
What a bad joke.
All speculation at the moment of course. But if it turns out to be what happens at least the NMH does happen. Black Hawk could do the job and would be acceptable. Who knows, maybe the cost trade off enables the RN to get more Merlins or Proteus. Symptomatic of how tight the budget is.
Totally useless. Simple as that.
Poland, Germany, France, and others all massively increasing defence budgets and quickly rolling out new assets. Looks like only the HMG is still cutting and cutting!!
Ideology. They cannot help themselves.
Speaking of Germany, they placed an order for 8 MQ-9B SeaGuardian today.
No surprise.
The sooner these charlatans are out the door the better.
Sadly, a poster, forget who, told me last year that Leonardo knew they had the order and that long lead items were already underway.
Pity, I believed them.
As for Blackhawk. Great, it’s reportedly what the military have wanted for years.
Remember them??? Those poor suffering bastards at the end of the queue for defence money when industry and politics wins every blasted time.
The NMH order has been delayed so long that it is now caught in the big Defence Investment Plan debate.
HMG is committed to spending about £20 bn more on defence over the next two years. That is a heck of a lot of new money, so you’d think there would be enough to spare for a useful number of a pretty straightforward medium utility helicopter. But alas not, for three reasons, viz:
1) There is a massive backlog of old equipment that needs replaced, which previous governments have kicked into the long grass to avoid the cost. For instance, the RN would normally expect to build a new escort every 18 months, so 6 or 7 over the next 10 years of the DIP. But now they are having to build nearly twice that number, 13, over 10 years. Where is the double-your-money to come from?
At the same time, they have to fund up to 17 other ships (3 new FSSS, 1 Proteus, 3 Castle MCMV, 6 MRSS, 3 River 1 replacements and a deep sea survey vessel to replace HMS Scott). That is way beyond the current and planned budgets, again, where is the money to come from?
All three services are in the same boat, the army having the biggest backlog of old equipment that previous governments have not provided the money to replace.
2) The current rush to new ‘transformational’ equipment is going to add tremendously to the equipment bill. The navy’s Atlantic Bastion plan is going to cost £3bn-£4bn-£5bn, and I would think a good deal more.
The RN wants a MALE UAV to be launched from a carrier, a heavy-lift UAV, Dragonfire DEWs, more NSM, future FCASW missiles and the list goes on. The army and RAF have their own transformational wish-lists too, though not as wildly expansive as the RN
Problem is there is no way the new money is going to stretch to a £10bn+ rash of new technology weaponry on top of the long list of elderly equipment needing replaced.
So something has to give somewhere.
It shouldn’t really be the NMH. A US army division has 30 frontline medium utility helicopters, so about 55 in total, for supply, troop movement and air assault; our 3 Division and 1 Division have exactly none. The US division has command and EW ones too, plus 22 frontline Chinooks for supply and medevac. The RAF needs a batch too, really about 30, for tactical supply, CSAR etc. With what are we to fill the big gap if there are no NMHs? A few tired, second-hand Black Hawks is hardly a useful solution.
The fact is there is nowhere near enough money in the budget to do everything the services, particularly the RN, want. And on top of this of course is the ever-soaring nuclear programme with 4 vastly–expensive Dreadnought SSBNs on the horizon.
3) Question is can HMG actually find the money to be spending an extra £13bn a year on defence in two or three years time? Where is all going to come from – extra taxes, cuts to welfare services, miraculous growth? That is the uneasy background to the 10-year DIP.
Hard fact is, if we want to spend billions on transformational tech like Project Bastion, we will have to cut some of our conventional capability to pay for it. NMH is bound to be one of these capabilities in the snipers sights.