HL Deb 08 July 2003 vol 651 c30WA
Lord Redesdale

asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether they have a policy on offsets, which are a part of the global defence trade. [HL3305]

Lord Bach

The Government do have a policy on industrial participation (IP), which is otherwise known as "offsets". The policy invites overseas companies bidding for UK Ministry of Defence equipment contracts where overseas purchases in excess of £10 million are being comtemplated to put forward IP proposals. Exceptions to this are France and Germany, where the reciprocal threshold has been set at £50 million. IP is not applied to collaborative programmes.