Westminster vows to back Clyde shipyards after closure fears

Published on Wednesday 1 July 2009 21:59

UK MINISTERS have vowed they will "continue to support" Scotland's two Royal Navy shipyards in an attempt to allay fears that both are facing closure over cutbacks.

Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy, who will today meet senior bosses at BVT, the giant group which runs both the Scotstoun and Govan yards on the Clyde, said the future of the two yards was "the strongest in a generation". His pledge came despite a leaked internal memo from within BVT, published earlier this week, which showed that the firm was already preparing contingency plans that could lead to the loss of at least one of the yards after 2014, when work on building two aircraft carriers is complete.

The backing of the UK government yesterday led to fresh speculation from defence insiders that the leak of the memo had been deliberately engineered from within the industry, as part of an attempt to flush out ministerial support.

It comes with BVT bidding for more government contracts beyond the aircraft carrier deal, such as the complex Mars programme to improve the navy's support vessels.

However, sources from within the company last night claimed that the leak of a document written by BVT Surface Fleet's chief executive, Alan Johnston, was a deliberate attempt to destabilise its relationship with the Ministry of Defence.

SNP MPs yesterday demanded an urgent Commons statement from ministers, demanding that they "come clean" over the future of the two yards.

The leaked memo showed Mr Johnston forecasting savings of up to 500 million for BVT Surface Fleet from the closure of the two yards after the 5 billion contract for two Royal Navy supercarriers is completed in 2014.

More than 4,000 people still work in the firm's two remaining yards at the Clyde.

SNP defence spokesman Angus Robertson said: "The future of thousands of shipyard jobs have been thrown into doubt, and Gordon Brown himself must end this intolerable uncertainty right now."