National Shipbuilding Strategy

Debate between Kevan Jones and Douglas Chapman

Thursday 11th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP)]

Thank you very much, Mr Evans; it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I will try to maintain as best I can the level of optimism displayed by the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis). I congratulate the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) on securing the debate. I welcome the opportunity to talk about the great importance of this issue not only to the industry but to those who work in it and—from the perspective of a Scottish MP—to the Scottish economy.

As hon. Members will know, shipbuilding has been part of the industrial fabric of Scotland for most of the last three centuries. The world’s highest-quality ships were once built on the River Clyde, where around a fifth of the world’s ships were constructed in the early 1900s. As we all know, the industry’s decline has hit Scotland hard, but there is still a sense of pride among Scots about our shipbuilding heritage. There are plenty of reasons why shipbuilding can and should survive in Scotland today. We have the talent and the infrastructure to take on large shipbuilding contracts, as we have seen in the construction of both aircraft carriers, and it is imperative that we maintain that capability as part of a sensible industrial strategy and defence strategy for future years.

If the Government are serious about protecting the future of shipbuilding and about the delivery of the shipbuilding strategy, they must award the contract for the fleet solid support ships to the UK consortium’s bid. My views on the issue have been clear from the start: it was a huge mistake for the Ministry of Defence to tender the contract internationally. I maintain that position.

Francis Tusa, an expert from Defence Analysis, prepared a compelling report on behalf of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions last year, setting out the case for the fleet solid support ships to be built in domestic shipyards. The report notes that retaining the contract in the UK would result in serious returns to the Treasury of up to £415 million—even by Treasury standards, that is not small beer. The report also points out that a yard in Rosyth, which is in my constituency, is big enough to accommodate those ships. That yard is crying out for work to secure its future after the contract for the HMS Prince of Wales aircraft carrier comes to an end.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the fleet solid support vessels are big enough to be built in block form, as the carriers were, with the work spread around the UK?

[Douglas Chapman]

Absolutely; the right hon. Gentleman makes a valid and accurate point. The Minister has visited Rosyth and has seen for himself what we have to offer, but he is assiduous and visits areas across the UK, so I am sure that that point will not be lost on him when decisions have to made in future. The GMB estimates that if the support ships order were placed in UK yards, it would create up to 6,500 jobs. Not only would that help to protect the future of Rosyth but the benefits would be shared across the UK. A Government who say that they have a prosperity agenda at their heart must show that it is real and not just something that trips off their Ministers’ tongues. It must be made real and must have a real impact on our economy.

The Government continue to roll out their tired old party line: “These vessels are not warships and are therefore subject to international competition.” How can they peddle that myth when the Minister’s predecessor confirmed in an answer to a written question that he expects the support ships to be fitted with close-range guns, such as the Phalanx? The Phalanx is a 20mm Gatling gun designed to shoot down fast anti-ship missiles, aircraft and fast-attack craft. To argue that a vessel fitted with such weapons is not a warship is difficult for everybody to fathom.

Like many hon. Members, I have repeatedly raised this matter, whether at Defence questions, via written questions, during debates in the Commons Chamber and in Westminster Hall, and again today. The Government must look at this again to be absolutely sure that they are making the right decision, not just for the future of the shipbuilding industry but for the prosperity agenda that they say is so important. I have also raised the matter with the Prime Minister during Prime Minister’s questions, and followed up with a written invitation to her to visit Rosyth dockyard in my constituency, to see for herself the skills, talent and infrastructure that we have there to fulfil such a contract. To echo the right hon. Member for New Forest East, the new Prime Minister will receive an invitation as soon as he is appointed, and I hope it will be met with more optimism and will provoke a better response than last time.

My message has received cross-party support. I tabled an early-day motion calling on the Government to restrict the support ships tender to domestic competition, and it was signed by Labour, Conservative, DUP, Plaid Cymru and SNP Members. I would be grateful if the Minister gave some reassurance that our plea for those ships to be built on these islands was not falling on deaf ears.

Although it is an island, the UK’s ability to protect its own coastline is severely lacking. Scottish maritime territory accounts for 60% of UK waters, yet the UK Government have failed to maintain any surface vessel presence in Scotland. All Royal Navy vessels are based on England’s south coast, so it currently takes more than 24 hours for a ship to reach us. I visited Devonport on Tuesday, and it took me half a day to fly there by plane. A 24-hour delay by ship is too big a risk for us to take with our national security.

I am not privy to diplomatic cables—I know that some people are—but I have heard rumours that the US are looking at developing a naval base somewhere in Scotland. Imagine the US having a larger naval presence or footprint in Scotland than the Royal Navy. If there is any truth in that rumour, we live in very strange times indeed.

The RAF Nimrod maritime surveillance aircraft were scrapped in 2010, and we are told that we would need to wait until 2021 for the full P8 fleet to be delivered. That is outrageous when, in recent years, incursions into Scottish waters have increased to their highest level since the cold war. Incidents of Russian transgressions into Scottish waters were reported in 2011, 2014 and 2019. The previous Defence Secretary admitted to the Defence Committee that

“Russian submarine activity in the North Atlantic has increased tenfold in recent years.”

Despite that, the Tories have perpetuated a nosedive in the number of Royal Navy ships from 77 in 2010 to 66. Furthermore, during the Scottish independence referendum, we were promised that 13 Type 26 frigates would be built on the Clyde, but that figure has since been reduced to eight. The commitment to a frigate factory is another promise that was rolled back and has come to absolutely nothing.

When he was Defence Secretary, the right hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond) repeatedly told the people of Scotland that the only way to secure the future of Scottish shipbuilding was to remain part of the UK. Yet inside the UK, Scotland’s shipbuilding industry has been eroded. Shipbuilding in Scotland employed 15,700 workers in 1991. That figure has more than halved to just 7,000 in recent years. Compare that with independent Norway, a state of similar size to Scotland, where over 37,000 people were employed in that sector in 2008.

During the Scottish independence referendum, we were also promised 12,500 full-time military personnel in Scotland, yet levels are now well below 10,000. In Norway, again, 20,000 people are employed in the armed forces—double the proportion of the population in Scotland.

It is safe to say that the Tories have broken their promise to Scottish shipbuilding and on many other fronts. They clearly cannot be trusted with the future of the industry—although I will be happy to hear more positive sounds from the Minister today. Plenty of small states such as Denmark manage to maintain their sovereign naval defence capability very successfully. With independence, I am sure that Scotland could do exactly the same.

Last year, as a member of the Public Accounts Committee, I led an evidence session on the defence equipment plan, which highlighted a £15 billion black hole in the MOD budget. Sufficient funds have not been made available to dispose of any of the 20 submarines that the MOD has decommissioned since 1980, seven of which lie in the dockyard in my constituency. All the while, the nuclear arsenal continues to burn a huge hole in the defence budget, to the tune of £2.2 billion per year. Continuing to spend such astronomical sums on nuclear weapons that will never be used while our coastal defences are compromised is simply unsustainable and unacceptable.

The Public Accounts Committee findings uncovered the fact that the Type 31 budget did not exist. It is a smaller frigate, but its exportable elements are important to the future surface ship business, in particular in yards such as Rosyth and others across the UK. All the skills and talents that we developed while building two of the largest ships that the Royal Navy has ever built— the QE class—will be lost unless we can maintain the shipbuilding industry through contracts for the support ships or, for example, the Type 31s. In terms of the numbers, the Type 31s could employ 2,000 people over the term of the contract, attracting 150 new apprentices into the industry. That is a price worth paying to ensure that we have a good industry into the future.

In conclusion, in the context of ever-tightening budgets, in the MOD in particular, the Government must reconsider their defence spending priorities and review their ship- building strategy. Shifting resources to shipbuilding would mean responding directly to 21st century security threats. The Government must also review their decision-making process for tendering shipbuilding contracts abroad to ensure that a vital industry is protected from further decline. We must also see fulfilment of the unmet promises that the Government made to the people of Scotland during the 2014 independence referendum.

There can be a bright future for shipbuilding in the UK and in Scotland, although the jury is still out on whether the Government can produce the prosperity agenda that we all look for. Agreeing to the contracts for the fleet solid support ships, the Type 31e frigates and the missing list of Type 26 frigates is paramount in the future of shipbuilding and in making the national shipbuilding strategy not just a document to lie on a shelf gathering dust in the Main Building but a real plan for action and prosperity.