THE defence secretary hopes the government’s investment in defence will give the industry confidence to grow, in light of news Malvern firm QinetiQ could cut 75 jobs.

Gavin Williamson was speaking during a visit to Worcester-based Ministry of Defence contractor CMCA, alongside city MP Robin Walker on Friday.

“It’s obviously very disappointing that you’ve got those [potential] job losses,” he said, referring to the defence firm at Malvern Technology Centre.

“But what I’m determined to do is continue that investment that the MOD is making in our procurement programme and hopefully that will give the confidence to the industry to not be letting people go but to be taking people on.”

QinetiQ is currently in the consultation phase of the redundancies, which are expected to affect approximately 200 people in engineering teams across the UK.

MP for South Staffordshire, Mr Williamson said the government is, however, investing £178billion over the next 10 years into its defence programme.

“What we really want to be doing is encouraging businesses, not just here in Worcestershire, but right across the country, we want to be encouraging our defence industry to be investing in skills and talent and actually to be investing in the future.”

Referring to his visit to CMCA, he said:“It’s really great to be able to join Robin Walker here and actually see what a difference businesses in Worcestershire are making in terms of supporting our armed forces.

“What you have here today is a business that is making sure that the army, navy and air force are able to continue to deliver, get their equipment out and properly supported.

“And without those types of businesses, without helping and supporting our armed forces we would be much more worse off and a lot less safe.”

Asked about reports regarding plans for 400 more troops to be deployed in Afghanistan, he said: “We always review our troop deployments right across the world.

“As you’ll probably be aware, we currently have our armed forces deployed in 27 different locations right around the world and we constantly keep that under review.”