Defence Industrial Strategy

The Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS) is a United Kingdom government policy which was published as a white paper on 2005-12-15. The main theme of the DIS is the maintenance of sovereign capabilities, i.e. the capabilities of UK companies in key defence areas.UK defence procurement was radically changed by the government of Margaret Thatcher. Cost plus contracts and "national champions" were abandoned in favour of competitive tendering. This made the UK defence procurement market the most open in the world and in contrast to the European continent and America. However the DIS supports the concept of "national champions" to maintain what the Ministry of Defence sees as vital capabilites "to maintain appropriate sovereignty and thereby protect our national security." The Defence Industries Council warned in 2004 that the continuation of a totally "open market" approach would see the UK "lose almost completely the strong industrial base that has supplied our armed forces. UK sovereignty could be threatened."
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