National Shipbuilding Strategy

Lord Wrigglesworth Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wrigglesworth (LD)]

Is the Minister aware that the national shipbuilding strategy will be very much welcomed in the old shipbuilding areas, not least those in the north-east of England on the Tyne, the Wear and the Tees? Is she aware that the expertise still exists in those areas and has been kept alive by the enormous amount of offshore engineering work carried out in the oilfields of the North Sea? So the expertise and the culture remain in those areas. I make a special plea for Teesside, where we have one of the biggest estuaries and deepest rivers in the United Kingdom and which has been devastated by the closure of the steel industry at Redcar. The engineering skills that exist in that area could very much fulfil the sort of shipbuilding work foreseen in this strategy. Will the Minister and the Government please bear that in mind as they pursue the strategy in the years to come?

[Baroness Goldie]

I thank the noble Lord for making a very important point. Obviously, I cannot make any specific commitments and undertakings, and I know that he would not expect me to do so. However, I go back to what has been described by Sir John Parker as a sort of regional renaissance of shipbuilding. That, I think, is a very healthy indicator of where the shipbuilding industry is in the United Kingdom. When shipyards tender for these contracts, I know that there will be an interest in where they source the materials and equipment. Wherever it is practical and sustainable and not subject to specialisation issues, I think there will be an expectation, and we would like to hope, that as many of them as possible will be sourced domestically within the United Kingdom.