Threat to jobs as Harriers plan puts new carriers at risk

Published on Monday 26 July 2010 18:01

ACTION to protect thousands of Scottish defence jobs has been demanded after it emerged military chiefs are looking at axing the UK's entire fleet of Harrier aircraft in a cost saving measure.

The coalition government has made it clear it intends to cut defence spending by about 20 per cent, and it has emerged that a weekend meeting of the UK's new National Security Council debated either cutting all the 36 Harriers currently operated by both the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force or the RAF's entire 132-strong Tornado fleet.

The decision to cut the Harriers, saving about 1 billion, would have dire implications for the future of the two new aircraft carriers currently being built on the Clyde.

The first of the carriers is due to be ready between 2014 and 2016. It was originally intended that the new Lockheed-Martin/BAe-developed F-35 Joint Strike Fighter would equip the vessels.

However, it is extremely unlikely that the Navy Fleet Air Arm will be ready to deploy the F-35 by the time the first carrier, the Queen Elizabeth, is complete.

Under the previous government the intention was to use the Harrier GR9 on the vessels until the F-35 was ready. Without the Harrier, the vessel would be left without any fixed-wing planes to fly for some years, bringing into question the viability of the entire project. The Tornado cannot operate from carriers, nor can the newer Eurofighter Typhoon.

Labour MP for Dunfermline and West Fife Thomas Docherty said yesterday: "If the Harriers were taken out tomorrow we would have years where the carriers were just glorified helicopter carriers.

"It's crazy to be looking at axing defence capability in this way and I'm totally against getting rid of the Harriers."

A source at the meeting of National Security Council reportedly said: "Buying the carriers means keeping the Harriers."

The Ministry of Defence said yesterday that Harriers would not be used for the new carriers.

That directly contradicts evidence to the House of Commons defence select committee in 2008, when David Gould, deputy chief executive of the MoD's Defence Procurement Agency, was asked if he thought the F-35 would be ready in time for the new vessels.

"I am not confident that that will be the case," he replied. "We plan to use the (Harrier] GR9 on the first of the carriers."

He said the GR9 would remain in service until 2018.

The F-35 remains without any clear British "in service" date, meaning its deployment is at least five years away.

Mr Docherty, who yesterday visited the Rosyth dockyard with Scottish Secretary Michael Moore, called on the UK government to guarantee the future of carriers project.He said: "I invited Michael to the dockyard so that he could get a picture of the work that's going on there.

"There are about 1,500 jobs that will be created here in Rosyth through this work on the carriers and a similar number at Clyde. A lot more jobs would be created across the UK as a whole in terms of support industries, and we probably looking at a figure of about 13,000 so there's a lot riding on this.

"It's ludicrous that the UK Tory-Lib Dem coalition government is even considering not going ahead with schemes signed off by the last Labour government."

SNP Westminster leader and defence spokesman Angus Robertson MP called on the UK government to protect jobs.

He said: "Nobody doubts that difficult decisions have to be made under the defence review but It would be totally disgraceful if the axe were to fall on key areas like this.

"The MoD seems to be at war with itself over the strategic defence review, and the increasingly public battle over what is cut and what continues is unsettling and upsetting for our forces and their families at an already difficult time."

An MOD spokeswoman said yesterday: "Every aspect of defence is being looked at here in order ensure that we have the right capability in the future.

"We are going to see changes and some cuts in defence expenditure at the end of the review, with nothing ruled out."

6BN AWOL

The Ministry of Defence's accounts have been "qualified" by the Whitehall spending watchdog for the fourth year in succession after the department was unable to account properly for more than 6 billion of equipment.

The head of the National Audit Office, Amyas Morse, said that despite efforts by the MoD to tackle the issue, there remained "systemic and deep-rooted" problems with its asset management system.

The NAO found the MoD was unable to account for the whereabouts of 5.5bn of spares and other stocks, and 752 million of military equipment including firearms and 5,961 Bowman radios worth 184 million.

Mr Morse said: "The level of control exercised by the department is not yet sufficient to enable me to provide an opinion on a significant proportion of assets reported in the financial statements."

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