On Tuesday 16th July, the Air League held a parliamentary debate on ‘Air and Space: Inspiring the Next Generation Air Force’ at the House of Commons. We would like to give a big thank you to Airbus and Marshall Aerospace and Defence Group for supporting the event, as well as Robert Courts MP for chairing and hosting the debate.
It was a pleasure to welcome our guest panelists from Airbus, Rolls-Royce plc, ADS Group UK and Lockheed Martin and defence commentator Howard Wheeldon. The afternoon was insightful and engaging, and a number of important matters were discussed in depth, including investment in technology, particularly from Airbus’s perspective in the space domain. Broader debate covered, the formulation of long term industrial strategy, integrating capabilities across domains, large scale research and development programmes and international collaboration. A unifying theme was how to inspire young people to take up a career in aviation and aerospace, against the backdrop of continually increasing education costs and competition for UK talent from other industries.
