Shockwaves in Scotland as BAe axes 1,000 jobs in England

Published on Thursday 9 September 2010 17:28

FEARS about the safety of thousands of Scottish defence jobs were heightened yesterday when BAe announced 1,000 redundancies in England.

The job cuts come amid growing concerns over the 5 billion aircraft carrier project and with it the future of the ship building industry.

The turn of events at one of Britain's biggest defence contractors came as The Scotsman obtained figures which prove that military spending in the past decade has been contracting to the south of England.

A written answer in parliament has revealed that defence spending in the south east rose by 21 per cent and the south west 15.2 per cent between 2003-04 and 2007-08 while in Scotland it dropped by 9 per cent.

In 2007-08 Scotland only got 61.8 per cent of its population share of spending, the south east received 172 per cent and south west 247 per cent.

The revelation has underlined concerns that the ongoing Strategic Defence Review (SDR) will continue the trend of moving spending from other parts of the UK to the south of England.

This could see major losses in Scotland including ship building, with BAe chief executive Ian King this week telling MPs that his company had been asked to look at options ranging zero to one aircraft carrier instead of the two already ordered.

The 1,000 job losses BAe announced yesterday in Yorkshire, Lancashire and Hampshire did not include any which might result in chopping or scaling down the carriers project that supports up to 10,000 jobs on the Clyde and in Rosyth.

This led unions to warn yesterday that the 1,000 job losses at five military factories could be just the "tip of the iceberg".

On top of the threat to the carriers, two of Scotland's three RAF bases, the Royal Marines base in Arbroath, command position at Craigiehall and Black Watch base at Fort George are also vulnerable.

SNP Westminster leader and defence spokesman Angus Robertson MP said: "These new figures confirm beyond question that there has been a long-standing and frankly shocking trend towards concentrating defence spending in the south of England. It is absolutely extraordinary that more is spent on defence in the city of London than in the whole of Scotland."In the context of the current strategic defence review alarm bells will be ringing about what this means for the future of our remaining conventional forces if this trend is not addressed."

Mr Robertson has been demanding that new figures on the regional breakdown of spending are published again by the MoD, which stopped issuing them in 2007-08 because it said the statistics had "no strategic value".

But ministers were facing fierce attacks over the threat to the aircraft carriers from politicians in Scotland who united across parties to try to save the massive project.

SNP First Minister Alex Salmond warned that as many as 10,000 jobs across Scotland could be lost if the UK government scraps the building of the two new aircraft carriers.

He said that the Scottish Government had prepared a dossier which would spell out "the full implications of the cancellation of one or both projects".

Mr Salmond, speaking during Holyrood's First Minister's question time, said: "The extent of possible job losses would range from 5,000 to 10,000 across Scotland, depending on how you calculate the figures."

Lib Dem Scottish Secretary Michael Moore, facing pressure to speak up for Scottish ship building said: "Defence is undergoing a full review across the UK. Just as no decisions have yet been made, no guarantees can be given while the process is under way. I have made it clear I am listening to concerns from across Scotland and making Scotland's case at the highest levels of the UK government."