Queen’s Speech

Earl of Arran Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Arran (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly about business in the community. Noble Lords could be forgiven for missing a small but highly significant event that took place on 15 March this year about 20 miles from my home in north Devon: the closure of Appledore shipyard. After a proud history spanning 400 years of shipbuilding in the estuaries of the rivers Taw and Torridge and 11 years of operation by Babcock International, closure was enforced because there was no commitment at that time for contracts from the Ministry of Defence. Until then, Babcock had delivered a steady pipeline of projects that delivered sections of many of our capital ships, including parts of the Queen Elizabeth carrier. The yard had employed 200 direct and around 200 indirect employees, and its reputation for quality gave it world renown. Quite simply, it was the bedrock of the local economy and the heart of the local community.

Since March there have been other yard closures, including Harland and Wolff and the Ferguson yard on the Clyde. Furthermore, Babcock Marine has further downsized its workforce at Rosyth in Fife. The combined effect has been to destabilise the capacity of the United Kingdom to build capital ships. The MoD had been pursuing a procurement policy that focused mainly on value for money. As a result, contracts for three support ships for our carrier fleet—each vessel being 40,000 tonnes, with a total contract value of £1 billion—were put out to international tender, with yards in the UK bidding in competition with yards in Italy, Spain, Japan and South Korea.

Following a review by Sir John Parker looking at our national shipbuilding strategy, the main findings of his recommendations have been adopted. The latest contract for the five Type 31 general purpose frigates has been awarded to a UK consortium led by Babcock. To reinforce the change in UK policy, Secretary of State Ben Wallace has also been appointed as shipbuilding tsar. However, is this too little and too late to save the marine industries of the south-west, of which Appledore was a vital and symbolic part?

The UK’s south coast marine cluster is this country’s leading marine industry hub, bringing together a rich marine history, hundreds of kilometres of coastline, world-renowned research industries, such as the Plymouth Marine Laboratory and the UK Hydrographic Office in Taunton, and a large network of marine companies, supporting around 105,000 jobs and contributing around 8% of the total contribution from the UK’s marine and maritime sectors. The importance of the south-west marine assets cannot be underestimated or squandered. This is not just about nice beaches for tourists; they are part of our unique global assets, with the ability to lead on marine defence and manufacturing, including autonomous systems and offshore renewables, together with fishing and our aquaculture industry.

We now have some grounds for optimism that there may be a future for Appledore. In the past two weeks a prospective purchaser has been identified, with an order book from international sources. The attraction of Appledore is its reputation for high-quality workmanship. I commend the Government’s efforts to assist this transaction and, as a former Defence Minister in your Lordships’ House, I trust that the House will support those interventions. It would be a wonderful result if Appledore were to reopen. The smiles of joy and relief in the communities would be infectious. We should not, however, lose sight of the fact that we have flirted dangerously close to compromising this whole industry. Let us hope that the debacle has opened our eyes to a new chance to make this one of our leading industrial sectors.