Andy Burnham urged to block sale of naval submarine maker over national security concerns

 Andy Burnham has been urged to block the sale of a key supplier to the Royal Navy’s nuclear submarine programme to foreign predators.

British manufacturer Goodwin, which dates back 143 years, has agreed to sell parts of its mechanical engineering division to US private equity group Cerberus Capital.

The unit is working on the Navy’s new Dreadnought nuclear submarines - sparking fears over national security if the £1.1bn deal goes ahead.

It follows the sale of a host of British defence companies in recent years - including GKN, Cobham and Ultra Electronics.

Lord West, retired Admiral of the Royal Navy, said: ‘I have a nervousness and it’s been growing for some time about the number of UK firms being taken over by foreign firms, particularly in the defence field.

‘There’s a need for sovereign control in these areas and you have to be very careful it is not being lost.’

The proposed deal for the Stoke-on-Trent business comes amid heightened tensions between the UK and US over their diverging approaches to Israeli settlements.

In a further sign of strains in the relationship between Washington and London, President Donald Trump has hinted he would not back the UK over the Falkland Islands because of its failure to support the attacks on Iran.

The fact that Cerberus was co-founded by current US deputy defence secretary Steve Feinberg did little to calm national security fears.

Former defence secretary Lord Heseltine called for ministers to scrutinise the deal under the National Security and Investment Act (NSI) - which gives them powers to block such takeovers.

He said: ‘I would be a sceptic of allowing a British company in the defence industry to be moved out of European control. We have an Act and it’s up to ministers to make it work.’

The NSI Act was introduced in January 2022 to ensure hat bids for companies of all sizes in critical industries are automatically screened for national security threats.

The sensitive nature of military assets means the Goodwin deal is likely to be scrutinised by British and US authorities, but similar previous deals have been waived through.

Earlier this year, former business secretary Peter Kyle told the Mail he would not ‘take a back seat’ on overseas buyers.

But just weeks later Senior, which supplies components to the defence, aerospace and energy sectors, agreed a £1.4bn takeover by a consortium of firms, including Blackstone and Tinicum.

The UK remains Goodwin’s largest market by revenue at 29pc of its total, but the US market has grown its share to about 24pc according to its latest annual report.

The FTSE 250 company recorded profits of £77.5m in the year to April, a 118pc year-on-year increase.

Chairman Timothy Goodwin, part of the founding Goodwin family that remain majority shareholders, said the ‘significant improvement’ in the mechanical engineering segment’s performance had ‘substantially enhanced its strategic value and generated considerable external interest’.

Cerberus said Goodwin’s operations and manufacturing would remain headquartered in Stoke-on-Trent under the deal, and it intends on ‘building on the existing partnership with the Ministry of Defence to significantly enhance production capacity in the UK’.