A look at the All Party Parliamentary Group for Shipbuilding and Ship Repair report.
Based on evidence from experts in the field, the report calls on the Government to ensure domestic yards receive the Fleet Solid Support Ship Contract in order to retain the skills needed to construct, refit and upgrade complex warships in the future. The report states that the industry is already facing significant redundancies as the aircraft carrier programme runs down, with the subsequent loss of leading-edge skills.
Once lost, the report argues, these skills cannot be quickly regained and the UK’s sovereign capability to produce complex warships will suffer accordingly, as will the UK’s ability to project naval power.
The APPG states that “it is the responsibility of the Government to ensure the Royal Navy receives its equipment from a leading-edge supply chain and support structure and is therefore able to maintain its operational advantage”.
The report can be downloaded here but for the sake of brevity, here are the recommendations.
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We’ve had government support for shipbuilding for some years in the form of ToBA. What has it actually resulted in? Well BAe have had to partner with a much more efficient yard Cammell Laird to stand any chance of winning a competitive bid on the T31 and in their own yards they have produced some over priced OPVs which required some serious rectification work.
Not unrelated to this article it appears that the SSS bidding process is weighted in favour of the UK consortium. From the defensenews site
“Fincantieri pulled out originally because the U.K. wanted a proposal based on a new design, which involves a good deal of work and a big investment, and there was no funding from the MoD for that,” the source added. “Additionally, the competition appeared tailor-made for the U.K. consortium.”
https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2019/05/31/in-or-out-heres-why-fincantieri-may-rejoin-bidding-to-build-british-ships/
These all sound like sensible suggestions. UK government needs to implement them. I would share work between Scotland and England though just in case Scotland decides to go for independence.
With today’s news re Harland & Wolff, Sir John Parker could be forgiven for wondering why he bothered producing his report on shipbuilding strategy. Appledore gone, now H & W following, so two UK yards will have disappeared even before any decisions about orders have been taken by the experts in Whitehall. P*ss up & brewery spring to mind.
And now Fergusons….
With yards like H&W closed and now Ferguson’s one wonders if the UK has the capacity to build both T31 and FSS, the QEC’s will need a refit taking up Rosyth in the 2020’s.