Two of Scotland’s best known business figures have backed the proposal to turn the former Mossmorran chemical plant into a weapons components factory, with Sir Tom Hunter saying Europe cannot depend on America for its protection and that Donald Trump has a point about NATO burden sharing, according to comments made on the Go Radio Business Show.
Hunter, who became Scotland’s first home-grown billionaire after selling Sports Division and now runs the Hunter Foundation, co-presents the programme with Lord Willie Haughey, the Labour peer who built City Facilities Management in Glasgow. Haughey raised the Mossmorran proposal on Sunday’s edition and put it to Hunter that Scotland needs to take a more pragmatic view.
Hunter said: “I mean, the fact is, you know, we live in a world where we need defence. We didn’t think we were going to need it, but once again, we cannot depend on America to protect us. And I actually think Donald Trump’s got a point about NATO. We haven’t been paying our way. So we need to get a European wide defence industry to keep us safe. We can’t depend on the Americans.”
Haughey’s reply to that was “got a point for once”, before he turned to the politics of building armaments in Scotland. He said: “What people have to know is that the first rule of government is to keep your citizens safe and secure. And whether we like it or not, we are living in a more dangerous place at the moment than we have been maybe for decades.”
The proposal they were discussing comes from TBG International Limited, a Hampshire-based defence contractor, which submitted a pre-application screening request to Fife Council last month for an energetics manufacturing facility on the site of the former Fife Ethylene Plant near Cowdenbeath. Energetics covers explosives, propellants and pyrotechnics, the chemical heart of almost every munition, and the plans set out process buildings, earth-covered storage magazines and the earthworks that go with them, alongside the reuse of existing offices and warehouses.
Fife Council has told the company that a full environmental impact assessment will be required, because an integrated chemical installation producing explosives falls under Schedule 1 of the assessment regulations. ExxonMobil stopped production at Mossmorran in February after concluding the plant was no longer financially viable, putting more than 400 jobs at risk, and expects decommissioning to run until 2028.
Haughey also made a wider claim about European industry, telling listeners that around half of the car manufacturers are approaching governments for help to remodel and re-equip their factories to make armaments, because Chinese producers have taken the volume out of the car market. Fewer cars to build means fewer jobs, he argued, at the same moment that Europe cannot say where the next conflict will come from.
“See the people who are complaining about not wanting to build armaments factories, they’ll be the first people to complain if they don’t feel as if they’re being protected.”
Finding work for the Mossmorran workforce has been a live question since the closure was announced, and Douglas Alexander, the Scottish Secretary, said in November last year that Babcock had signalled a willingness to explore whether it could in time employ some of the plant’s skilled workers. The site sits a short drive from Rosyth, where Babcock is building the Type 31 frigates.
Scotland’s place in the defence spending increase has been contested all year, with the Scottish Affairs Committee warning that skills shortages could stop the country benefiting and this publication reporting that Scotland risks missing out on the defence spending boost. The Scottish Government confirmed this month that it will match funding for two Defence Technical Excellence Colleges, one on each coast, having been offered the money in the spring.
Wes Streeting told the Commons yesterday that he wants the colleges backed with £50 million in England to expand to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and offered to work with the Scottish Government on the defence of the United Kingdom regardless of constitutional differences.
