Defence Industry and Shipbuilding — House of Commons, 2018-07-11
Topic: Defense
Emma Louise Lewell-Buck (Labour, Centre-left): Thank you, Mr Speaker. You will be pleased to hear that my speech is very short Today’s debate gives the Government a really simple and straightforward choice: they can show they are seriously committed to their promised renaissance in UK shipbuilding by ensuring that the contract for the new fleet solid support ships is tendered in the UK only, or they can refuse to accept our motion, proving that their commitment to a renaissance is nothing more than yet another in a long line of vacuous phrases from this Government I know the Government may argue the line that in their national shipbuilding strategy these ships are not warships and are therefore not safeguarded for UK construction, but in a written answer just this year the Minister for defence procurement said: "We expect the ships will be provided with a limited range of weapons". He went on to explain weapons, such as small arms and close range guns. I am no arms expert, but that sounds to me like a ship that is equipped to defend itself from hostile attack. It is true, is it not, that under article 346 of the Lisbon treaty, our Government could, as other EU nations have, safeguard our own defence industries and tender these contracts in the UK I would stress to the Defence Secretary, if he was here, that if he is really in charge of his Department he could change that policy and set a new direction. Why can he not change this policy, adopted in the national shipbuilding strategy, so that ships such as these are safeguarded for UK construction? In short, it is a question of political will: whether he wants these ships and the associated economic benefits to impact here in the UK or abroad The arguments on the Labour Benches and among the public are clear. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Tyneside (Mary Glindon) said, the GMB union commissioned polling showing that 74% of people want the fleet solid support ships to be built in the UK. That could create up to 7,000 jobs, nearly 2,000 of which would be in our shipyards. An estimated nearly 5,000 jobs could be secured in the wider supply chain and the return to the taxpayer could be nearly £300 million. It would also ensure that vital skills, which are dying out in some areas, are passed on for future generations. Many of my family members have those skills. I am proud to come from a family of shipbuilders. My dad was a welder. My grandad, Herbert Lewell, and my uncle, Alan Lewell, were both painters. My other uncle, Alan Richardson, was a plater and my other grandad, John Henry Richardson, was a sheet metal worker. It is safe to say that the Tyne has some of the best shipbuilders in our country We are grafters in the north-east, but years of Tory Governments saw the decline of our yards, culminating eventually in the closure of the iconic Swan Hunter’s—in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for North Tyneside—where many of my family served their time. Not content with shutting down the pits, our other mainstay of employment, the Tory Government from 1979 to 1997 ripped the heart out of my community and damned children like me and others to years of watching their parents, wider family, friends and community struggle, ravaged by mass unemployment that created a vacuum of hope for generations.