REELING from the third blow to jobs in manufacturing in as many weeks, East Lancashire suffers a particularly cruel blow with the loss of 132 at aerospace giant BAE System's plant at Samlesbury.

For though, as ever, the first impact of job losses falls on the households of the axed workers, in the redundancies at BAE there is the added concern of the long-term effect on our region's skills base.

For these are jobs at the high-tech end of manufacturing and the retention of such expertise in our region is essential to its economic future.

It was only two weeks ago that Mr Dennis Mendoros, chairman of the North West Aerospace Alliance, representing 800 firms that contribute billions to the region's economy, warned that its prosperity hinged on the survival and growth of its manufacturing industries, at the forefront of which are the plane makers.

And, rightly, he called for the government and firms themselves to continue to invest in their home markets -- above all, so that capacity and skills could be preserved for the expected upturn in the aerospace market.

To that end, there must be a swift and positive response to Ribble Valley MP Nigel Evans' call today for the Ministry of Defence to prevent further job losses at BAE by ending the uncertainty over the second batch of orders for the Eurofighter Typhoon warplane.

It is vital that the thousands of East Lancashire jobs and skills that it supports are kept flying.