ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on a prime example of a high-tech industry: aerospace. In the inter-war period and immediately after the Second World War, competition was used extensively in military aviation in the United Kingdom. In order to sustain so many producers in what was a shrinking market, the Ministry of Supply embarked upon a policy of competitive development. The desire to preserve the aircraft industry and the low priority assigned to a properly functioning competition policy was to become an increasingly important influence in the attitude and actions of government during the 1950s and 1960s. The significance of civil aerospace and the ability of aircraft firms to fund their own civil development became even more important in the aftermath of the 1957 Defence Review. The principle of greater industrial concentration was in accord with the government's objectives concerning industrial policy. The policy of international collaboration and the operation of the system of juste retour supports the assertion.
