The Minister for Defence Procurement (Jeremy Quin) With your
permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement
on behalf of my colleague the Secretary of State for Defence and
shipbuilding tsar, concerning the Government’s refresh of the
national shipbuilding strategy. The United Kingdom is a great
maritime nation and shipbuilding runs in our blood. At the turn of
the previous century, Britain built 60% of the world’s ships and,
although we are no...Request free trial
The Minister for Defence Procurement ()
With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make
a statement on behalf of my colleague the Secretary of State for
Defence and shipbuilding tsar, concerning the Government’s
refresh of the national shipbuilding strategy.
The United Kingdom is a great maritime nation and shipbuilding
runs in our blood. At the turn of the previous century, Britain
built 60% of the world’s ships and, although we are no longer the
world’s workshop, our shipbuilding industry remains a global
leader in design and technology. It brings in billions to our
economy and spreads wealth right across our country. Today, our
maritime manufacturers are responsible for the state-of-the-art
research vessel the RSS Sir David Attenborough, and for
constructing the most powerful surface ships ever built in
Britain: the Queen Elizabeth-class carriers.
More than 42,600 people from Appledore to Rosyth owe their
livelihoods to our shipbuilding industry, but we still need to
strengthen its resilience. It is worth reminding ourselves that
even in the digital age, some 95% of UK trade by volume, and 90%
by value, is carried by sea. Given this dependence, it is vital
that we continue to safeguard our access to global maritime
trade, even as we open up our sails and seek out new markets and
new sustainable technologies. That is why, in 2019, the Prime
Minister appointed the Defence Secretary as the shipbuilding
tsar. Since then, he has been working tirelessly across
Government to make our shipbuilding sector more productive,
competitive, innovative and ambitious.
There has been real progress. Not only do we have much greater
cross-Whitehall and industry co-operation, but we are doubling
Ministry of Defence shipbuilding investment over the life of this
Parliament to more than £1.7 billion a year. We have committed to
procuring a formidable future fleet, including up to five Type 32
frigates, alongside the Type 31 and Type 26 programmes. We will
grow our fleet of frigates and destroyers over the current number
of 19 by the end of the decade. We have launched a competition to
build a national flagship—the first ship of its kind to be built
and commissioned in Britain—and last September we opened up the
National Shipbuilding Office, a pan-governmental organisation
that reports directly to the shipbuilding inter-ministerial
group, is chaired by the shipbuilding tsar and is driving
transformative change across our organisation.
Today, I am delighted to announce that we are going one step
further by publishing our refreshed national shipbuilding
strategy. Drawing on the multi-talented skills of the Government,
industry and academia, and backed up by more than £5 billion of
Government investment over the next three years, the plan creates
the framework for our future UK maritime success. It contains
five essential elements. First, it radically extends the scope of
our existing shipbuilding strategy. I may be standing here as a
Defence Minister, but rest assured that the plan is as much about
commercial shipbuilding as it is about the Royal Navy. We are
focused not simply on hulls alone but on internal systems and
sub-systems.
Secondly, we are establishing a 30-year shipbuilding pipeline of
more than 150 vessels, thereby offering a clear demand signal in
respect of our future requirements. We know that a regular
drumbeat of design and manufacturing work is vital not just to
maintain our critical national security capabilities but to drive
the efficiencies that reduce longer-term cost. We are not just
giving suppliers confidence in industry order books; we are going
to give them greater clarity about our requirements, too. Today,
we set out our policy and technology priorities, from net zero
commitments to social-value requirements.
We are determined to ensure that our vast shipbuilding programmes
leave a lasting legacy that goes beyond the procurement of a new
vessel for the Border Force or the latest battle-winning
warships, so we have made it a key requirement for shipbuilders
to take account of social value, thereby ensuring not only that
we deliver the capabilities that each Department needs but that
taxpayers’ money is used to maximum effect. We support jobs,
skills and investment and will establish a new social value
minimum of 20% for competitions for Royal Navy vessels.
Thirdly, our strategy will accelerate innovation, enabling
shipwrights and supply chains to unlock new manufacturing,
production and clean maritime technologies. In recent times, the
automotive industry has blazed a trail in the field of
sustainability, investing in everything from electric to hydrogen
and ammonia fuel technologies. But domestic shipping accounts for
more emissions than the bus and rail sector combined, so when it
comes to decarbonisation, it is high time that we made sure
shipping does not end up in the slow lane.
In 2019, the Department for Transport published its “Maritime
2050” strategy, amplifying the power of UK maritime business
clusters to foster a climate of innovation.
Last year’s clean maritime demonstration competition underlined
the sheer depth of the sector’s potential, with 55 projects
winning a share of £23 million to develop carbon-free solutions
such as hydrogen-fuelled vessels and shipping charge points
powered by offshore wind turbines. Building on that success, we
will now make the competition a regular event, creating more
opportunities for industry to bring cutting-edge technologies to
market.
Alongside that news, I can announce today that the Department for
Transport—I am delighted to be joined by the Minister of State,
Department for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle
() —has committed £206
million to develop a UK shipping office for reducing emissions,
or SHORE, which will fund research into and development of
zero-emission vessels and help to roll out the infrastructure
that enables the UK to achieve its goal of becoming a world
leader in sustainable maritime technologies.
Fourthly, shipbuilding is a long-term investment, and the more we
can do to shelter it from market storms the better, so the fourth
aspect of our plan is about providing greater financial support
for shipbuilders to win orders. Access to finance for
underwriting contracts is an essential element of any
shipbuilding enterprise. Alongside banks and working capital
loans, the Government also have a role to play in helping to
finance vessel contracts.
UK export finance already offers credit facilities to support
British companies winning work overseas. To make UK shipbuilders
more competitive, we are bidding for orders for new ships from
domestic customers. The Department for Business, Energy and
Industrial Strategy is now working up plans to underwrite
contracts for UK shipbuilders building ships for UK operation.
BEIS aims to launch this new home shipbuilding credit guarantee
scheme in May.
Switching to exports, opportunity is opening up for suppliers to
increase their market share. In 2020, we exported £2.2
billion-worth of ships, boats and floating structures. We believe
that we should be able to grow our exports by 45% by 2030. To
make that happen, we are opening a new Maritime Capability
Campaign Office. Covering all aspects of the shipbuilding
enterprise, from platforms to sub-systems, to the supply chain,
it will use robust industry analysis of global markets to help
suppliers reach untapped markets. Our success in the long term
will hinge on the strength of our skills base.
This brings me to the final aspect of our plan. We are determined
to develop the next generation of shipbuilding talent, so today
we are establishing a UK shipbuilding skills taskforce. Led by
the Department for Education and working in tandem with the
National Shipbuilding Office and devolved Administrations, it
will bridge skills gaps and learn from best practice,
particularly in relation to new and emerging technologies. Above
all, it will act as a megaphone for the varied and exciting
careers that shipbuilding can offer up and down the country, from
designing cutting-edge environmentally friendly ferries to
developing propulsion systems for complex warships.
The building blocks of our refreshed strategy are settling into
place. Our NSO and Maritime Capability Campaign Office are up and
running. Our UK shipbuilding skills taskforce is accepting
applications from today, and, in the coming months, we will be
establishing a new shipbuilding enterprise for growth. Co-chaired
by the chief executive officer of the National Shipbuilding
Office and a senior industry executive, it will unite the finest
minds in shipping to overcome some of the sector’s toughest
challenges.
In other words, today, we offer a powerful vision of what
shipbuilding will look like in 2030. It is a vision of a
supercharged sector with thousands of highly skilled workers; a
vision to make this the country of choice for specialist
commercial and naval vessels and systems, components and
technologies; a vision that generates the increased investment to
level up our nation; and a vision that will spark a British
shipbuilding renaissance and inspire even more countries to seek
out that “made-in-Britain” stamp.
The framework is ready. Now we will be working with our superb
shipbuilders, our supply chains and across Government to help
transform this great ambition into a prosperous reality. I
commend this refreshed strategy and this statement to the
House.
12.42pm
(Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)
After months of delay, I am pleased that the Minister has come
before the House with a shipbuilding strategy.
Now, we all know that the Prime Minister loves a photo
opportunity or two, so I am sure that he will enjoy his trip to
Merseyside today when he can dress up in his favourite
fluorescent jacket and his little hard hat and make his
historical analogies to Britain’s proud shipbuilding past.
Perhaps while he is there, he would like to explain why the
Ministry of Defence has given a £10 million contract this week to
a Dutch yard for a vessel that could have been built right here
in Britain.
Despite the Prime Minister’s jingoism and nostalgia, the reality
is this: the Royal Navy has only 13 frigates and six destroyers.
Our Royal Navy is being asked to take on increasing
responsibilities, but one in five ships has disappeared from our
surface fleet since 2010. It is no surprise, therefore, that the
Defence Committee has concluded that the Navy cannot fulfil the
full ambition of the integrated review with its current fleet.
Our Navy needs more ships, but it is also vital that we ensure
that they are built right here in Britain. Our shipyards are
crying out for an end to the feast-and-famine cycle of
procurement, yet, despite the 30-year pipeline, there is no
commitment to ensure that ships are built in UK yards.
Our steel industry and shipyards are national assets, which is
why Labour has called for a “British built by default” approach
to defence procurement. The GMB has said that Ministers are
“again sowing uncertainty with their disastrous policy refusing
to guarantee work for UK yards…No other shipbuilding nation would
dream of procuring its own vessels in this way.”
I must ask the Minister this: why does the strategy not promise a
“British built by default” approach to defence procurement? Why
does the strategy not include targets for UK steel in UK ships?
Without either, how can the Minister ensure investment in his
stated ambition of local jobs invested in our communities?
The strategy also fails to tackle the deep-seated problems of MOD
mismanagement and delivery. The National Audit Office currently
rates no major shipbuilding programmes as being on time or on
budget, and it is only getting worse. The number of MOD projects
rated “amber/red” has doubled and fleet solid support ships have
moved from amber to “amber/red” in the past year. Why has the
strategy been published without a clear timeline for delivery?
How will the £5 billion cover the cost of 150 ships, and is this
even new money?
At a time of increasing threats, it is not the time for vanity
projects, but the Government, and the Prime Minister in
particular, continue to push ahead with a new royal yacht. The
Defence Committee had stated that it has
“received no evidence of the advantage to the Royal Navy”
in acquiring it. Does the Minister still think that this is the
best way to spend MOD money?
Chasing headlines and photo opportunities on shipbuilding is one
thing, delivery, value for money and investment in Britain are
quite another. Unfortunately, this strategy fails on all those
counts.
I make no apologies for taking time to come to the House with
this strategy, because we want to make certain that it is a
strategy that works, and that is exactly what we are delivering.
There is no jingoism or nostalgia about this strategy; it is hard
facts that will deliver for our shipbuilding industry. It is a
shipbuilding industry that needs to embrace the modern technology
of artificial intelligence and environmental sustainability. That
is why we are establishing the UK Shipping Office for Reducing
Emissions, with £206 million behind it. It is a strategy that
will support our ship buyers with a home shipping guarantee
system, in the same way that we support our exports with export
guarantees. We have a National Shipbuilding Office that is doing
great work and is cohering across Government and delivering for
the entire industry.
The hon. Gentleman spoke of warships. We can be very proud that
we are putting more money into warships —£1.7 billion will be the
spend by the end of this Parliament, doubling our current
commitment. The Type 31 frigate HMS Venturer had her steel cut in
Rosyth, with HMS Glasgow now well under way on the Clyde.
Opportunity exists for Type 32, with up to five entering service
with the Royal Navy, and a certainty that we will be going beyond
our current level of 19 frigates and destroyers by the end of
this decade.
The hon. Gentleman referred to FSS ships, which he knows will
have a very substantial element of UK build. They are on time to
be delivered within a couple of years of the procurement. We are
doing our utmost to ensure that we derive value from this
strategy and that it will deliver for Britain.
The hon. Gentleman asks why we cannot have a “build in Britain”
strategy. As he knows, that is exactly what we do for warships,
and it is this Government who have extended that to say that, for
every ship being acquired by the MOD, we will make a case-by-case
examination to see whether that needs to be a build in Britain.
We have broadened that scope.
When we go beyond defence and warships, we cannot, on the one
hand, say that we will support the international rules-based
order, yet, on the other, ignore rules organisations such as the
World Trade Organisation. We need to work within those rules to
get the maximum value for our country, which is exactly what the
NSO will do. We have a programme of 150 vessels, £4 billion of
support going into British shipbuilding over the next three
years, and exciting opportunities that our industry can
follow.
(Rayleigh and Wickford)
(Con)
The British-built Type 45 destroyer is arguably the best of its
class in the world, but it has been plagued by persistent
problems with its propulsion system. The Ministry has a “put
right” programme, but it will not be completed until 2028. Given
that we now have to deter a Russia that is prepared to bomb
maternity hospitals, we need those ships fully capable and fit to
fight now, not in six years’ time. Will the Minister go from this
place back to his Department, review the entire programme and
issue an urgent operational requirement, so that if they were
required, those wonderfully capable ships can fight to keep our
country and NATO free?
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that the Type 45s are
excellent bits of kit. They are one of our bits of equipment that
I know our adversaries fear, and rightly so. The concern we
always have is balancing operational requirements; as he knows,
we have two Type 45s out on station at the moment, so we must
make certain that we can bring those ships back in for their
power improvement project upgrades. I can confirm that we are
looking at ways to accelerate the PIP programme, and I recognise
that it is important that we do so.
I also apologise to my right hon. Friend, and I dropped him a
note this morning. In response to an intervention yesterday, I
said that Dauntless was undergoing sea trials, but I had
conflated sea trials with the test and commissioning phase. That
is where she is now, but the three new diesel engines are working
successfully and she will be embarking on sea trials in a few
weeks’ time.
(Angus) (SNP)
I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement and
commend his fleet-of-foot actions in changing the range from
Appledore to Glasgow to Appledore to Rosyth. That is an important
correction to make.
The fourth from final paragraph in the Minister’s statement cuts
to the chase on this issue in the way that the strategy does not
when he states that it is a vision to make the UK,
“the country of choice for specialist commercial and naval
vessels and systems, components and technologies”.
Among the 80 pages of waffle and padding, the strategy alights
briefly on that point, but not in the way it really should. The
strategy also highlights the word “international” 31 times. I
welcome the realisation that in a global economy with global
supply chains the notion that we can procure every single element
in the United Kingdom, while a noble ambition that we should
sweat as much as we can, is naive.
I welcome the fact that the national strategy sets out a range of
opportunities, which excellent yards all around Scotland are
ready to lean into and capitalise on. I am a little sceptical
about whether the funding announced in the strategy will have a
massive impact across all the yards in the United Kingdom, but I
hope it will.
Scotland’s skills, as I am sure the Minister will agree, have
been highlighted many times in the past decade, not least on the
QE2-class ships, which are outstanding in their quality and
performance, the Type 26 under construction in Glasgow and the
Type 31 under build in Rosyth. He will welcome, as I do, the
export success that has been achieved, with 26 going to Canada
and Australia, but he will know that those are in-country builds.
That is not to downplay the opportunities of intellectual
property and engineering that Glasgow will enjoy from them, but
does he agree that really what we need is Type 31s sold to
countries that will require them to be built in Rosyth?
First, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman will acknowledge, this is
a UK-wide endeavour. There are great assets and skills in
Scotland, and I am delighted that this week, I think, we have
signed a lease to ensure that there is space in Edinburgh for
part of the National Shipbuilding Office to be based there. This
is a national endeavour, delivering for the whole of the UK. He
is right that £4 billion is a lot of money and we want it to go
further by winning export orders.
The hon. Gentleman is right that the Type 26 exports to Canada
and Australia are a solid bit of progress. It is right to say
that they will support thousands of jobs and design is incredibly
important, as are many of the subsystems often used by overseas
purchasers, even as they do a lot of work on the frigates
themselves. We will learn from them as well as their learning
from us.
On Type 31 and export, there has been great news: first the work
with Indonesia and secondly the down selection last Friday by the
Polish navy of Type 31 or Arrowhead. That is an extremely
important step forward and I am very proud to have been part of
it. I spoke to my Polish opposite number on that and other topics
this morning. It would be great if we could also sell Type 31 to
countries that do not have the capacity to build themselves, and
do that work in Rosyth or elsewhere. That is a grand ambition.
However, I am delighted that our design, our subsystems and our
skills are being recognised in the export orders we are already
winning.
(Buckingham) (Con)
I warmly welcome my hon. Friend’s statement. I am sure he has
been glued to the Transport Committee’s current inquiry into
fuelling the future, where we have heard evidence about a
plethora of new, cleaner fuels being developed for use across the
transport sector. With the £206 million he has announced for the
UK Shipping Office for Reducing Emissions, may I urge him to give
as much regard to the cleaner fuels of the future as to the tech
being developed on vessel?
Absolutely; I thank my hon. Friend and look forward to the
conclusion of the Select Committee’s work. He is right about
fuelling for the future, and I have no doubt that my colleagues
in the Department for Transport will place a significant emphasis
on exactly those issues. They certainly did in the first round,
with the £23 million of the clean maritime demonstration
competition, which had 55 awards and was oversubscribed. I know
many of the R&D suggestions coming forward were in exactly
that space, which offers a great opportunity for the future.
(North Durham) (Lab)
I draw the House’s attention to my non-pecuniary interests entry
in the Register. I welcome the Minister’s statement. In his
original report, Sir John Parker emphasised the drumbeat of work
and regular orders that is important for yards—but that means
orders. The Minister’s own Department, in the past few weeks, has
awarded a £10 million contract to a Dutch yard, even though I
warned him about that several months ago. He has given no
commitments on the FSS, and the Border Force and the Home Office
are looking at procuring boats from the Dutch, too. No other
country does that. We need a full commitment from Government to
ensuring that when those orders are procured, they are procured
in UK yards. They used to hide behind the European Union, but
they can no longer do that. I understand that Ministers are now
hiding behind some international trade issues, but no other
country has this problem.
The right hon. Gentleman and I did have a discussion across this
Dispatch Box regarding the order, and his intuition proved
correct. There was a competition process, and he proved to be
correct in his assumption, although I emphasise that that was not
a new build of a new vessel, but a requirement for the Royal Navy
to have an existing vessel that it could practise some new
developments on. It went into the market as a competition and
that is how it ended. They fine-tuned the competition to ensure
that it was fully fair, and we got that result.
I know the right hon. Gentleman has been a regular advocate of an
FSS build in this country. FSS is proceeding and it will be
substantially built. I am trying to remember exactly when the two
years starts—I believe it is two years from the start of the
manufacturing phase but, if it is not, I will write to him and
leave a note in the Library.
On the point about the WTO rules, we do not take them lightly and
it is right that we work within them, but that does not mean that
we do not do everything in our power to maximise the benefits to
British shipbuilding. That is what the National Shipbuilding
Office has been set up to do, and that is what this refresh is
about: whether on shore, on the home shipbuilding guarantee or on
skills, we must ensure that we win, that we succeed and that we
can compete with and be just as productive as other northern
European yards.
(Bracknell) (Con)
I, too, welcome the statement from the Minister, which is
excellent—what is not to like? This is about jobs, livelihoods,
R&D, technology, self-sufficiency, investment and exports. I
welcome the growing imperative towards a “build it in Britain”
strategy. That is very important. Given our proud shipbuilding
pedigree in Wales, England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, does
he agree that this is great for the Union? Moreover, noting that
we are a proud seafaring member of the United Nations P5 and of
NATO, does he agree that we are better off together?
I absolutely agree that we are better off together. I agree with
my hon. Friend that we should build in Britain; that should be
the result of this refresh. We should be not only winning in
Britain, but winning export orders overseas, due to the quality
of our products and ideas and the productivity of our
manufacturers. I agree with all that in the context of the United
Kingdom build. That is a huge emphasis and, as Scottish yards
have found, whether with the British Antarctic Survey or Babcock,
having the weight of the Royal Navy—a benchmark Navy—behind them
and the UK Government in full support really does help to bring
in those export orders. We are committed to jobs, skills and
infrastructure the length and breadth of the UK.
(Rotherham) (Lab)
I welcome the Minister’s statement about the commitment to
shipbuilding. May I urge him to do all he can to make sure that
the ships are built in Britain, using British steel? In
Rotherham, we make world-leading steel and we are the only place
making speciality steel. If he could make that commitment, it
would give real security to the industry.
In the same way that we have that pipeline of 150 vessels, as the
hon. Lady knows, we always set out the pipeline of what is coming
up imminently to help steel manufacturers in the UK to know where
the opportunities are. With some ships—for example, the
carriers—a huge proportion of the steel was from UK sources. It
does vary according to the technical specification. However, I am
absolutely convinced of one thing: if we can increase the amount
of shipbuilding in Britain, the amount of UK steel being used
will increase proportionately as well.
(Ashfield) (Con)
This is welcome news and I thank the Minister for his statement,
but does he agree that these warships should be built in Great
Britain by great British workers, using great British steel,
and—the bit that will upset the Opposition—using great British
coal to make that steel?
I feel that today I have trod on the toes of many Departments in
bringing forward many policies from the Department for Business,
Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Department for Transport and
the Department for Education, which are going to do a great job
for British shipbuilding. I am not going to plunge into coal—I
will leave that to my colleagues—but I agree 100% that warships
will be made in this country by British shipyards doing a great
job, as they always have done, in supporting the Royal Navy. The
more UK content we can have in those ships, of all forms, the
more I welcome that.
(Caithness, Sutherland and
Easter Ross) (LD)
In 1941, Winston Churchill embarked on HMS Prince of Wales to
meet President Roosevelt and sign the Atlantic charter. That was
a battleship—a warship. In 1947, the royal family embarked on HMS
Vanguard to start their South African tour. HMS Vanguard was a
battleship—a warship. May I suggest to the Minister that it would
be better to spend the cost of a Type 31 frigate on another Type
31 frigate than on a national flagship?
I respect the hon. Gentleman’s views. I remind him that the cost
of the national flagship, spread over four years, is about 0.1%
of the MOD’s overall budget, so this does not break the bank; it
is a relatively small proportion of the overall budget. The ship
has a job to do. It is not a matter of being a royal yacht, as
the hon. Member for Islwyn () suggested earlier—it is a
national flagship with a job to do. A huge proportion of the most
successful cities on earth are on the coastline. It has a job in
marketing and spreading the word for global Britain. I think it
will be a great success. People decry it now, but I have no doubt
that in five years’ time they will be saying it is great and in
30 years’ time they will not be able to imagine us not having
one.
(Bassetlaw) (Con)
I thank the Minister for his excellent statement. Does he agree,
though, that we should not just rely on domestic demand to drive
investment in British shipbuilding but look to sell more abroad,
as with, for example, the contract Babcock secured with Poland
last week?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. A lot of work went into that.
I spoke to my Polish opposite number only this morning. The Poles
are delighted by what they are getting. The Arrowhead Type 31 is
a fantastic frigate that will do brilliantly for the Polish navy,
which works very closely with the Royal Navy in developing these
ideas. We have plans around the rest of the world with our allies
and our friends to support their capabilities and at the same
time to support design and build here in the UK.
(Warley) (Lab)
The Minister prays in aid of his case international rules, but
surely that requires international agreement, conformity and
consensus. The Government used to claim that the issue was EU
rules which no other EU country followed. Then they claimed it
was WTO rules. Now it is the international order. Now in the
statement they have declared the fleet solid support ships to be
warships. Frankly, the last veil has been ripped away and his
policy is naked to the world. Why will he not declare that they
will now buy British first?
We will be buying British in so many ways among those 150
vessels, but we will be doing that not because we have retreated
into a narrow protectionist hole but because the design,
innovation and skills in this country will be second to none as
we work through the benefits of this refresh. The right hon.
Gentleman is trying to hide behind the rules. I am trying to say:
let us look at the rules to make certain they work and work in
the interests of this country. That is why we have the NSO and
SHORE. It is why we will have the home shipbuilding credit
guarantee. We are finding ways to assist and to ensure—this is
the most fundamental point; I know he wants this as much as I
do—that our shipyards are as productive as every other shipyard
in northern Europe. We are not there yet, we need to get there
and we are determined to make that happen.
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
My constituency has 23 inhabited islands and therefore ferries
are never far from my mind. Babcock is the site of a
state-of-the-art advanced manufacturing facility currently
manufacturing Type 31 frigates. Does the Minister agree that this
expert workforce are ideally placed to design and to manufacture
specialist vessels that could serve Scotland’s island
communities, and indeed those across the UK, for many years to
come?
I certainly agree that there are great skills and great design
capacity in Rosyth. I have seen that for myself. I went there to
see the new shipbuilding shed, which is a fantastic bit of work.
There is a great workforce and a great sense of optimism, quite
rightly, in the yard. From memory, the ferries contract has been
awarded elsewhere by the Scottish Government, and it has not been
a happy situation, so I would not wish to impinge on their
personal grief. But are there good skills in Scotland that could
be used, and is Babcock a good option? I would say so, but it is
not for me to award these contracts.
(Jarrow) (Lab)
While communities across the north such as those in my own
constituency recognise and appreciate industrial investment in
places that share a proud industrial heritage built by
generations of craft, skill and dedication, does the Minister
recognise that his party was responsible for the decimation of
our shipbuilding industry over many years? I join hon. Members
across the House in asking him to commit to UK shipyards such as
A&P Tyne in my constituency to secure these jobs. I also ask
him to commit to involving and consulting the trade unions in the
new national shipbuilding strategy.
I and the trade unions I have met, particularly on the Clyde,
have the same sort of vision for the future of our national
shipbuilding endeavour. That is to have those high skills and to
have a workforce who are trained, effective and incredibly proud
of what they do, which I know is the case today. A huge number of
manufacturing jobs were lost under the last Labour Government; I
am afraid that the decline of national shipbuilding has not been
under the purview of one party or another. But this party and
this Government are determined to reverse that, and we do so by
ensuring that we can compete effectively on the world stage and
that we have the skills, the innovation, the R&D and the
productivity. That is what this refresh is about. We will be
winning, and winning well, on the international stage. I know the
hon. Lady is as keen on that as I am.
(Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for his statement and very much welcome it.
There is, as he knows, a great tradition and history of
shipbuilding at Harland and Wolff in Belfast in Northern Ireland.
It is critical that we in Northern Ireland play a central role in
the national shipbuilding strategy. Can he confirm that Harland
and Wolff in Belfast will have an important, practical, physical
role in that strategy, and that financial benefits related to
wage packets and so on will come as a boost for the Northern
Ireland economy, which will be a central objective for us in
getting the benefit of this strategy as well?
It is fair to say that I am very excited by the prospects of
Harland and Wolff. It is great to see a great shipyard with a
terrific history hopefully sparking back into life as part of our
renaissance across the UK. I am not going to be prescriptive
about what yards and what procurements will be involved, as that
would be wrong on all kinds of levels, but we have 150 vessels
coming through over the next 30 years and £1.7 billion of
procurement for MOD vessels by the end of this Parliament. There
is lots of opportunity, and I wish everyone well in going for it.
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