"The National Shipbuilding Strategy, published in 2016, and accepted in full by the Government, talks about using shipbuilding to assist in spreading economic growth and growing a skilled labour force" explained Prospect National Secretary for Scotland and Ireland Richard Hardy "and yet the only economy growing from the offshoring of the £1bn FSS contract is likely to be the Korean one, whilst yards across the UK, and particularly at Rosyth face hundreds of redundancies and the loss of skilled workers."

"The Prime Minister repeated the claims of the National Shipbuilding Strategy at Prime Ministers Questions on April 25th" he continued "but members at Rosyth and Devonport and at other yards across the country now face the threat of redundancy, and it seems to us that the Strategy has fallen at the first hurdle, and the Prime Ministers claims about economic growth and the retention of skilled jobs are rather meaningless"

"If the UK wants to retain the sovereign capacity to build complex warships, and retain the ability to have a competitive domestic industry, then it must seek to place as much work as possible in British yards in addition to the complex warship programmes, otherwise yards will not be able to maintain the skilled workforce necessary for the future. We hope to build cross party consensus in Holyrood that will lead, along with the calls from within Westminster for a review of the FSS decision and greater certainty about the future of the Class 31e programme" He concluded

Prospect will update members on responses to the letter and continues to seek cross party high level meetings at both Holyrood and Westminster, and to work with Babcock the employer at Devonport and Rosyth over managing the redundancies already announced