Prospect the Union has responded to an announcement by the Prime Minister on the Type 31e frigate programme.
Mike Clancy, general secretary of Prospect, said:
“It is welcome that this announcement has finally been made following damaging delays from government that caused huge uncertainty for the industry.
Events in the Gulf this summer have shown that 19 frigates should be an absolute minimum for the Royal Navy. So this first order of five warships must be followed up by further orders. This will maintain the drumbeat of production and make sure further capability gaps do not occur.
This government has a lamentable record on shipbuilding, with yards closing and skills lost. These workers need more than warm words and a new tsar, they need concrete action.
These frigates were always going to be built in the UK, but workers need a cast iron guarantee from the prime minister that new naval support ships will also be built in our yards and UK workers will not be left high and dry while vital work and taxpayers money is sent abroad.”
The good General Secretary as with most Union leaders, has an aggro tone whenever he opens his mouth. They are never satisfied. Perhaps he should offer vastly better productivity and a big improvement in quality in return for the Taxpayers money.
Which bit of Mike Clancy’s statement do you disagree with? Or is it just the words Trade Union that give you indigestion!
Personally? The bit where he says “this government has a lamentable record on shipbuilding”, as if it’s specifically Boris, who’s been in power for literally a minute, that’s caused the collapse of British shipbuilding.
He’s the head of a shipbuilding union, yet he doesn’t grasp the fact that ships are planned decades in advance.
Nit-picking…you know very well that he means the party that has been in power since 2010! If he wants to criticize Boris then he has every right to, although he didn’t. Even Johnson Junior thinks his behaviour is beyond the pail.
You mean the governments that actually finally announced the construction of the T26 and T31? As opposed to the Labour governments that ran down the fleet, cut the T45 order down from 12 to 6, and spent a decade coming up with a dozen different frigate concepts instead of actually building them?
There are dozens of things to criticise Boris and the previous Tory governments on, but based on recent history they’re not the ones fucking up shipbuilding.
Selective memory again! Labour did make cuts to the Navy..and ordered the two largest aircraft carriers ever produced for the RN. If my memory is accurate, RN cuts by Thatcher’s government (the telegraphing of British disinterest in the South Atlantic by the projected withdrawal of Endurance) led directly to the Falklands war. There’s none so blind as those that just don’t want to see! Humbug!!
It’s hardly selective, I’m just staying within a relevant time frame. If you want to bring up Thatcher, we can bring up the Labour 1966 white paper. None of that’s relevant to now though, is it?
You seem to be missing my point: Clancy specifically phrased his comment to target this government for issues that were caused decades ago by different governments. He’s just trying to run down Boris for something that has nothing to do with him.
What absolute bunk. You want to stay in a relevant time frame….of course it is relevant; successive post-war governments have bungled defence issues. There isn’t much to choose between them. Clancy was criticising poor government planning…in case you haven’t noticed, it is the Conservative Party that is in power and has been since 2010. Wouldn’t be much point in criticising Labour then…according to you!
C and H…Gentlemen..
Facts,
Under Labour’s last years we lost, without replacement, one carrier,six attack boats,and seven destroyers. Six Type 45’s were cancelled.
Since 2010 we have lost two carriers, Ocean, five destroyers ( two had already been laid up)and four frigates.
Make of it what you will…
Hence my comment about ‘not much between them’!
It was the Conservatives who cut the escort fleet from 23 to 19, cut a landing ship, cut MCMV’s – and then took the best part of a decade before ordering the frigates…..
Spot on Callum, and we still paid the same price for 6 instead of 12, one of reasons RN is short of ships now.
I’m not sure the parties which exist today are likely to implement policies which remotely compare with those of the past. Where is that likely to leave us?
I also had a run-in with some militant remnants of the ’70s about three years ago, although I wouldn’t really agree to it being the average shipyard worker, not anymore anyway.
They tried to intimidate the apprentices, by staring at them during a (Collective Bargain) vote on wages.
Even when they (militants) were out-voted in the final vote by about 100 to 3, they still stood scanning the canteen to bully the young ones.
I’m only glad that the apprentices felt less intimidated by being around the more moderate, majority workforce!
Prospect is a relatively Moderate Union; a Non-Political-Party Union, with no affiliation to Jeremy Corbyn’s Socialist Labour Party.
I wouldn’t put Mike Clancy in the same category as “aggro tone” Militant followers of Corbyn.
Note I use the term “Relatively Moderate”.
I have no experience of The Clyde Yards, but I find other yards far less militant than in the 70s.
As you know, shipyards can be breeding grounds for militant workers, hence my annoyance at Corbyn, rallying behind Cammell Lairds minority “Militant Union” remnants, in support of strike action. I’m only glad that intelligent compromise between the workers and management won the day!
Define, ‘Heavy plate.’ I worked on warships and understand the construction. By the way, you need to proof read your posts.
Oh, I see! You write this way as a norm, you high-handed, semi-literate buffoon in need of a fat lip.
Andy, spreading the work around will make British shipbuilding inefficient because all those blocks, hundreds of miles apart, have to be transported. This costs money. This is why no successful shipbuilding country does it this way (France, Germany, Korea, japan, China). We cannot do it this way in Britain either or we will never be competitive.
I thought the idea was you could build several blocks at different yards, all at the same time, rather than at one yard consecutively thus massively REDUCING cost with some offset for transporting the blocks for final assembly.
Don’t see Clancy referring to the Clyde once in this statement. Clancy is from Everton, so more likely to be a militant English shipworker. And prospect are a union who represent professional, managerial and technical staff in Central government, utilities, defence, telecoms, nuc decom, air traffic control and science. But let’s not let facts get in the way of your obsessive rants about the Clyde and how poor old England is bullied and neglected. If you stopped for a moment to read the article you’d realise that more orders could go to Birkenhead, Belfast, Rosyth, Clyde, Portsmouth, Devonport, The North… Read more »
I agree with his sentiments, but I would think that the ‘commitments” should come from him on quality and specifically that no more GLUE be used.
Of course Andrew and you know this because you sit on the executive board and have first hand experience in all things Clyde ship building . What a silly statement which isn’t based on anything factual and is nothing more than “opinion”. Here’s something you should consider practically every nation on earth has parts that are wealthy ,parts that are poorer , parts where industry is based , and party’s where the service sector ,financial or technology is centred. I.e in uk financial services is primarily in London not Liverpool or Manchester, in the USA , tech innovation is in… Read more »
Not often I find myself agreeing with unions, even if their tone leaves much to be desired
I agree with him.
Yards closing due to no orders while we keep workers abroad employed is illogical.
As always, a journalist needs to be on hand who know their onions to contradict politicians. 5 Frigates is not ship building coming home, it’s window dressing.
I agree Daniele, it doesn’t improve the deployment numbers either!
Daniele it’s 5 frigates (t31) as an INITIAL batch. They may be ordered in batches of four or five like the river class OPVs
Agree with the content AND the tone of the comments, but for me its as much to do with the defence of our island nation as it is to do with the jobs of his members….
Nearly took you to task there Geof until I realised there are two Geofs, or should I write geof. A bit confusing that!
Sorry Mate its not 19 Frigates , if only it was ,its 13 as I understand it, the balance is 6 destroyers,
Like most Union leaders and Oliver Twist he always wants more , So do we all, but Comeing from the Unions its hard to take , they would strike at the drop of a Hat,
Clacy’s statement echoes precisely the views that have been expressed, ad infinitum, on these pages for a very long-time! And these views are ‘hard to take’ coming from someone who represents the interests of shipyard workers? Sometimes, the utter humbug that is expressed on these pages is gravity defying!!!
Ah yes… Let’s keep building more ships we don’t have the naval manpower for.
Andy, I don’t even know where to start with that, honestly. Maybe go for a long walk and have a proper think about the world.
Unfair Comment andy!
Fiji, Nepal, Gahna…represented by brave and committed service personnel, who on many occasions, have fought with courage in all of today’s theatres of war.
We clearly need to recruit & train up more crews as well as making the working experience far better for serving personnel. What has happened to us when we’ve got into this apalling situation of record tiny escort fleet, massive capability gaps, MOD budget black holes, under manning &difficulty retaining what experienced crew we do have? If a sabateur had done this to us it would be treason & I think HMGs over recent decades is constructively guilty of just that.
I agree, to become a citizen of this country, why shouldn’t they put time in to serve. It doesn’t have to be military, it could be with the NHS, local council, charities etc. But basically a form of national service. This method would sort the wheat from the chaff.
Should we just keep letting people in until we are outnumbered in our own country? Does everyone realise that we can’t just keep letting more in forever, we do indeed have to draw a line somewhere? With over 20% of our country already non indigenous wouldn’t you say we have already let in (more than) enough? Do you think China, Turkey, Thailand, Pakistan, India, Korea, etc. are over 20% non indigenous and still letting more in?
At last census 12.7% of UK population were born outside the UK. Even if the trend continued from previous years still someway short of 20%.
Or by indigenous do you mean the 19.5% who in 2011 said they were ethnic minority. Cause if you do your point is clearly invalid and you’re just a bigot.
This isn’t even about the Clyde…
There needs to be a coordinated approach and time line to building, maintaining, upgrading, decommissioning, scrapping and recycling vessels that takes into account resources and availability from ship yards and British steel producers. Weapon systems commissioning and decommissioning would also need to be factored in.
The current ad hoc approach has shown to be unsustainable in that less ships are being built, with less capabilities and costs going up.
Yes, exactly!
Hmmm less capabilities? Not sure how you think ships built in 70’s and 80’s are more capable than what’s coming out of the yards in 2019-?
I’ve said it in another thread but I’ll say it again here. I think that for once there is just possibly something that some of us can do about this. When the Cameron government announced the T31e program one of the stated aims was to potentially increase frigate numbers (or maybe he said “escort numbers”, I am sure the exact wording is available from Hansard). For anyone here who has an MP who cares about defence and who ever speaks about it in the Commons it might well be worth contacting them, pointing out that one of the stated objectives… Read more »
All recent governments have cashed in the peace dividend by cutting our armed forces. Red or Blue, they all as bad as each other.
Nothing like biting the hand that feeds you though – must be hangry for ships 🙂
With the Royal Navy having a elephant in the room called Trident, I think the politicians feel that the RN has already got the largest share of the defence cake, maybe, and to avoid giving RN any more funding as much as possible?
Ridiculous to include the nations Strategic Defence as part of the RNs “piece of the cake”
And dont forget : we are an island nation
I think the first comment is a little unfair the Boris Johnson regime got this moving ASAP. Also the project is well within its timeline. The delay earlier in the year had to be made as there were not enough bidders & OK some clarification had to be made and this could be an error. I don’t think anyone could disagree with the following 3 paragraphs. Though in the 3rd I would take out this government and put all governments since about 1990s and beyond. If future ship procurement can run like the T31 (although still away to go) then… Read more »
Whichever way you look at it the government has completed the carriers, has proceeded with the Dreadnought’s, has continued with seven Astute boats, has agreed to eight T26’s and five T31’s ( another five please ), four Tide’s and is committed to new solid support ships. Overall not bad. What is needed now is for all existing ships to carry their full weapons and sensors fit. I also believe there is sense in looking at SSK’s for the North Atlantic and escorting the SSBN’s out and a class of powerful FPB’s or a modern corvette design for service in and… Read more »
Nice and positive as always Geoffrey.
Totally agree with everything there Geoff, we will soon have a very modern and capable navy, just need the full fit of weapons, planes and helicopters. Also agree with ssk’s Or a number of large autonomous subs if the tech is soon to be there. For SSK, we could just buy the design of the Gotland class and modify it with some of our tech. £150 million a unit and we would be supporting a very close ally. A class of 8-10 would be a serious uplift in capability and free up the astutes for stuff further afield and be… Read more »
If we go down the diesel electric submarine route I would go for the Wyvern, a British design. Even 5 of them would be a serious uplift in capability.
I would even be happy with another Astute.
Hi Stephen..I think five is about as far as we ever likely to go , if ever! I don’t know about Wyvern. Her weapon set look very limited. Any idea of price?
Hi T.S. Yes ..A 26 or T 212 which the Norwegians are looking at, either way we are working with both as good allies. Five boats maybe?
“19 frigates a minimum” I agree, but I’ll be happy with 16 minimum to replace the 23s. Oh and We have 19 destroyers and frigates!
I would challenge the unions to work with Babcock and BAE and improve quality, cost and working practices, otherwise its just hot air and bravado. At the end of the day it is their members sticking on screws with glue (which is indefensible) and not taking pride in their work. The only way this all becomes sustainable is if we have a Frigate Factory, a Large vessel facility, submarine facility and a small ships centre of excellence. I don’t care where they are located, I care that we have an industry (including steel factories supplying these yards and the car… Read more »
I more or less agree with you Pacman. We can support 4 shipyards in Britain with R.N./R.F.A., the occasional civilian ship (ferries, etc.) and refit work. Clyde – frigate factory for our high end destroyers and frigates Rosyth – Type 31 production centre Cammell Lairds – R.F.A. & civilian ships Barrow – our submarines Things like O.P.V.s and M.C.M.V.s, etc. would be shared between the yards or given to whichever yards most need it. Same with refit work. There would be some crossover too, for example if a few R.F.A. ships were to be built and say Rosyth had no… Read more »
He is not wrong. The delays have been epic. We need to get numbers of these ships in the water and our salespeople out around the world.
These ships are our protection! Having so few is a joke! I would be fine if we had 19 multipurpose ships like the yanks destroyers…, but we don’t…
Cam I couldn’t agree more – T26 needs 2 upgrades 1. Sampson or its successor radar 2. 48 Mk41 instead of 24 Then we need to order another 5 to ensure we have a fleet of 13 Arleigh Burke type Destroyers that merge our high end ASW and AAW assets into 1 hull form for negligible additional cost. This decision needs to happen soon, we can use the work done for the Canadian and Australian builds to create a mast capable of taking Sampson and the Mk41 is to ensure we have the ability to make this something the RN… Read more »
If you fit Simpson radar on a T26, it would Topple Over!
Also you would have to remove the main gun amd rise the deck to fit 48 Mk. 41 cells on T26 and cost an extra $30m+.
Not at all Meirion x
T26 already has strike length vls fore. And could accommodate midship quite easily
It can also accommodate Sampson with some additional work or we can adopt the Australian caefar radar and use their mast configuration
It certainly won’t topple over or even list it’s massive and has been engineered for multiple radar configuration.
With a radar coming in at less than £20m I think it’s n upgrade worth doing now as it is currently T26 weak spot
The T26 will accommodate the caefar radar, it is not as tall as the Simpson, above the water line. Tall towers on long thin ships don’t do well in the water, they topple over, that is a fact!
That is the reason why the T45 has a beam of 22m, in order to accommodate the weight, and height of Simpson radar above the water line.
Otherwise it would only be a T26 size, of 20.5m.
It will take the RN years to learn how use a new type of warship! The old ticonderoga cruisers will need hundreds of millions of spending to bring them them up to date. Then there is the manning issue. This idea would totally drain the RN!
Non Starter!
The hazard perrys are carped out like old bangers!
The simple answer is, those nations navys are strapped for cash! Much worst then the RN
Funny how he misses to mention the unions lack of integrity. Such as the River2 class “glued on bolt heads” incident!
Probably because it was neither relevant nor the responsibility of his trade union. BAE is responsible for its own quality control…any failures in that process must be attributed directly to BAE management!
I agree, but that all depends on who is doing the quality inspections doesn’t it and whether they report it up the chain? So is that a failing of the management, or the integrity of the person doing the work and latterly the inspections?
BAE sells the product…it is up to BAE to ensure that the product reaches the required standard. Whoever is doing the QC work….even if it is Strathclyde Girl Guides….its BAE management responsibility to ensure that it is done correctly…full stop.
If Scotland is to get every single last R.N. ship, bar none, they can’t also have the R.F.A. ships on top of that, whilst England gets nothing. The government seems to think Scottish shipyards and their job losses are the ONLY ones that matter, and do anything to prevent it, yet whenever an English shipyard completely closes down (Swan Hunters, Portsmouth, Appledore, etc.) they do precisely nothing to help. The next big order is the solid support ships, they must go to an English yard, with Cammell Lairds being the obvious choice. They too will be losing jobs as work… Read more »
Funny bunch unions never moan about lack of spending on RnD or in investment in robotics etc that could help their industry win more commercial contracts. They’d probably be happy if we went back to riveting ships together.
Interesting article on save the Royal Navy website, arnament for type 31s initially will be Bofors 57mm mk110 gun, 2x bofors 40mm mark 4 guns- so excellent point defence, anti uav, anti speed boat swarm weaponry and CIWS equivalence, the rate of fire from these 3 gun systems should be massive, around 500+ rounds a minute delivered highly accurately with a host of various deployable rounds, armour piercing, direct fire, shotgun rounds, airburst and proximity fused fragmentation. Sea ceptor vl systems + 8 cannister launched NSMs So pretty good initial fit. I would like an anti mine/ anti torpedo point… Read more »
Going will the smaller cal 57mm would be a bit of a break with tradition, I’d expect it to have either a new 5″ or even a 4.5 mk8 as we’ll have some lying about. It gives the vessel a proper NGS capability which makes it more versatile. If they are thinking of upping anti swarm armament on a platform that size I’m sure there’s enough space to bolt on a few more 30 mils or whatever.
Pointless. We can buy the steel work pretty much at peanut prices all over the world, starting next door in eastern europe. But, for what it’s worth, can somebody explain to me, what exactly the “e” part of T31 is? As far as I can see, it is a licensed danish design with minor adjustments, german or finnish engines, french sonar and CMS, dutch radar and swedish guns. Short of Sea Ceptor, everything of real value in this vessel comes from abroad, so it’s basically a T31″i”, with “e”s going to the nations involved. And this for a 5,700 ts… Read more »
Folks maybe someone can help me out here, with the T31s being put together in Rosyth do we have a shipyard with a large enough dry dock to build the two-three FSS at 40,000 tons. Or does this mean that the FSS project will go to Spain. With these five ships being confirmed what does the RN need now to bring it back up to strenght that is affordable and to give it the flexibility to meet brown and blue water requirements. To start a further five T31s would be more than useful one every 18 months from 2028 until… Read more »
Take a look at the Dutch Karel Doorman and tell me what a fleet of 9 of these would do to the RN (hanger space for 54 Merlins for a start) They are better than all the large ships noted above in almost every metric, with one exception, they are not docks. But this could be mitigated by the purchase of ship to shore connectors. The RFA/RN would be better off with the following for its large surface fleet. 5 Tides 9 JALSS (Karel Doorman’s) 4 FLOFLO’s The requirements of T26/T45 need to merge into a single class of 13… Read more »
Pacman 27, I like the look and capabilities of the KDs and tend to agree that they could and should be the replacement of the Bays and Argus, possibly be a base ship design for a deidicated hospital ship and could without any issue become a mother ship to UAVs and ROVs so yes 7-9 of these would be nice. They would need some reworking as they would need to have a speed of about 22 knots for what I am thinking as they would work with the LHDs. I Like their ability to operate offshore in the command and… Read more »
Hi Ron, We don’t have money for that and for me I wouldn’t do it if we had. The reasons I like the KD class are as follows: 1. These ships are excellent as both stores and amphibious support. 2. They have 6 landing spots for Merlin 2 for Chinook and we can hanger either in same numbers 3. they can accommodate a company of Marines easily – possibly 2 Companies in surge with all their equipment. 4. They have similar storage to that required by the FSS and that 5.Standardisation (reducing cost) and ensuring the fleet as utility at… Read more »
The Karel Doorman would Not be suitable as anti-
sub hunters, they make too much noise. That is the job of smaller vessels like T23, and maybe even T31.
Also the RN can not afford any more aircraft carriers!
I agree that we do not have the money and as for the noise I am certain we can do something about that if they were to be used in such a role. What I am trying to say is that we as a nation have a problem, we have the fifth largest EEZ in the world, we have overseas territories that rely on the UK for their protection. We depend on the sea to survive, I don’t mean the Iphone stuff but the basics such as food and oil. Our sea lanes face mutiple threats from low level piracy… Read more »
It would be too expensive to apply noise damping tech on to a large ship like a Karel Doorman vessel, more so then a T26! Leave sub hunting to specialist vessels like T23 or T26, or aircraft like P8s etc.
Right, because the purpose of a warship is to provide jobs.