Aircraft Carriers and UK Shipbuilding

John Denham Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

No, the contract will be placed under the overall umbrella of the terms of business agreement we have with BAE Systems, and, as I made clear in my announcement, we are effectively ordering the OPVs to soak up money we would have been paying in any case to have these yards standing idle, and in doing so significantly de-risking the start-up of the Type 26 programme by making sure the skills base remains in place in Glasgow.

I share my hon. Friend’s view, however, that there is a certain inevitability about the announcement we have made today. Governments have put off the moment, and the carrier order represented a pretty massive 130,000-tonne postponement of the moment, but we cannot alter the inevitable fact that we do not have a large enough Navy to sustain a multi-yard shipbuilding industry in the UK.

[Mr John Denham (Southampton, Itchen) (Lab)]

The record will show that the last Labour Government secured south-coast shipbuilding with a share of the destroyer order and then of the carrier programme. Today’s crisis has been coming for some time. Does the Secretary of State’s statement not confirm both that no effort has been made by the Government in the past three years to win extra orders for the Portsmouth shipyard and that work will be transferred from Portsmouth to other shipyards, hastening its closure? Does the Secretary of State understand why many in southern England feel they have been sold down the river today by a Government whose attention has been elsewhere?