Aircraft Carriers

Lindsay Roy Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Thomas Docherty]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s comments, but she obviously needs to work on her pronunciation of my right hon. Friend’s constituency. It is absolutely right that Royal Navy warships receive the best possible care and maintenance, and I hope that she will join me in urging her Government to back UK jobs and the UK’s defence industry.

We would never wish to see events such as the Falklands repeated, but—to pick up on the hon. Lady’s point—I believe that it is a matter of national importance that the United Kingdom retains the capability to send the Royal Navy’s flagship into operations in the best possible condition. We have highly skilled, highly trained staff at Rosyth, and I want to pay tribute not only to the management and work force but to the local schools and colleges that provide excellent training and support.

[Lindsay Roy (Glenrothes) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. I am a former head teacher, and my school provided a substantial number of highly motivated and trained people who are currently working in Rosyth. Does he agree that the unique partnership between Babcock, Carnegie college and the schools has assured the high-quality apprenticeship training, vocational retraining and graduate development necessary not only to assemble the carriers but to carry out the excellent refits and refurbishments for which Rosyth is rightly renowned?

[Thomas Docherty]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. He has a history of 30-odd years of service as a first-class educator of young people in Fife. I also want to place on record my tribute to Professor Bill McIntosh and all the staff at Carnegie college, and, indeed, those at Adam Smith college, for their work with the dockyard in helping to create 350 apprenticeships in a highly skilled work force.