No British firm was willing, but Sikorsky was interested. November 1985 Ĭuckney proposed that a new minority shareholder of 29.9% be introduced to Westland. It was decided that Tebbit should persuade the Bank of England to co-operate with the main creditors in the hope that a recovery plan and new management would end the threat of receivership.īristow withdrew his bid and in late June Sir John Cuckney was brought in as chairman of Westland. He attended two meetings about the company's future in June 1985, chaired by Thatcher. Heseltine at this time was uninterested in Westland helicopters when approached by Norman Tebbit, the then Trade and Industry Secretary, as plenty of American helicopters were available to meet Britain's defence requirements.
By June, Bristow was threatening to end his bid unless the Government assured him that there would be future orders for the company from the Ministry of Defence and that the repayment of over £40 million of launch aid for Westland's newest helicopter from the Department of Trade and Industry was waived. The Westland affair originated with Alan Bristow's bid for the company in April 1985. The episode was an embarrassment to the Conservative Thatcher government and undermined her reputation. Thatcher's survival as Prime Minister briefly appeared in question, but she rode out the crisis. Brittan was then forced to resign for having-on the orders of Thatcher's aides, he admitted some years later-ordered the leaking to the press of a confidential legal letter critical of Heseltine, and for his lack of candour to the House of Commons about his efforts to persuade BAe to withdraw from Heseltine's consortium. In January 1986, when he was ordered to cease campaigning for his European consortium, he resigned and walked out of a Cabinet meeting.
#WESTLAND SURVIVAL TRADER FREE#
Heseltine refused to accept Thatcher's choice and claimed that Thatcher had refused to allow a free ministerial discussion of the matter, even suggesting that she had lied about cancelling a scheduled meeting. Thatcher and Trade and Industry Secretary Leon Brittan, while ostensibly maintaining a neutral stance, wanted to see Westland merge with Sikorsky, an American company. The Defence Secretary, Heseltine, favoured a European solution, integrating Westland with a consortium including British Aerospace (BAe), Italian ( Agusta) and French companies. The argument was over the future of Westland Helicopters, Britain's last helicopter manufacturer, which was to be the subject of a rescue bid. The Westland affair in 1985–86 was an episode in which Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and her Secretary of State for Defence, Michael Heseltine, went public over a cabinet dispute with questions raised about whether the conventions of cabinet government were being observed and about the integrity of senior politicians.