Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment he has made of proposals to utilise the current BAE shipyard in Portsmouth subsequent to its planned closure.

Lambert Smith Hampton (LSH) have been appointed as the Ministry of Defence's marketing agents for the facilities being vacated by BAE Systems' shipbuilding operation.

LSH have received 19 expressions of interest which they are following up with site visits and/or provision of further information. This phase of the campaign is expected to run until the end of June 2014, when all of the expressions of interest will be fully assessed to determine whether any of them would be an appropriate and compatible future user for the site.