Another issue and reason for UK plant closures is the practice of Offsets and Licensed Production.
Many 2/3rd World nations demand these when procuring new equipment as it allows for job creation and transfer of technologies to these lesser nations. Famous cases of this include the Belgian and Norwegian F16 production that was all done in specially built factories in Europe.
BAe cite the closure of their Hawk factory in the UK is down to offsets or licensed production. This practise is very common in the Defence industry but not in many others.
The UK Defence Industry actually has disproportionate lobbying power when compared to its direct portion of GDP input. It does however have a strong multiplier effect (where the payback associated with initial investment is increased)
"A £100 million investment in the defence industry generates an increase in gross output of £227 million, and increases Exchequer revenues by £11.5 million. This means the industry has an output multiplier of 2.3, ranking it above the median of the sectors considered. This
reflects both a strong UK based supply chain and a relatively high wage level paid to workers"
http://www.defencematters.co.uk/getd...cs-report.aspx
...whilst at the same time the UK consumer is being taken for a ride with 'sticky' petrol prices - quite why petrol remains at this price level when crude oil prices have come off some 30% from their peak really grates me. But then most of this is taxation so the UK Government has a vested interest in keeping petrol prices high