A TOP cabinet minister hit the election campaign trail in East Lancashire only to be told of the aerospace industry’s concerns over quitting the European Union.

Brexit secretary David Davis visited T&R Precision Engineering in Foulridge today where managing director Tim Maddison tackled him on what the sector needed from the departure talks.

The 50-year-old, whose firm exports 70 per cent of its high-tech products to the EU, said: “I wanted to tell him about the concerns of small and medium-sized enterprises in the aerospace industry about Brexit.

“I was pleased to have him here to do this. It was too good and opportunity to miss.”

Mr Davis, who will lead the negotiations to leave the EU, said: “It’s the central part of our strategy to get a tariff-free frictionless trade arrangement designed to help companies like this one and to allow the components and the finished products to cross borders easily.

“It is designed to protect what we have in terms of market and suppliers in Europe, but it’s also designed to enable us to use that as a platform to find new markets abroad when we can go and do free trade deals with the rest of the world.

“Companies like this will have new customers on the back of that.”

Mr Davis, accompanied by Pendle Conservative MP Andrew Stephenson, said the talks would be ‘difficult’ but said he was glad of Mr Maddison’s views.

He said: “It's always useful to hear the detail of how these things work.

“The majority people in Lancashire voted to leave.

“What we are about is delivering on their instructions.

"After all, we’re taking orders here from the public.”

Mr Stephenson said: “I know the aerospace industry has concerns about leaving the EU and it is good Mr Davis hears them first hand. But there are also big opportunities.”

Mr Davis added: “On other areas justice, home affairs, security we provide enormous advantage to the EU countries so they will want to maintain that too.

“We are leaving the EU but we’re not leaving Europe.

"They want to be on amicable good terms with us.

"They way that will happen is through a good outcome to negotiations.”