From the Heralds readers forum>>> The Royal Navy is being modernised at a large cost, but it needed it. There were the 12 planned Type 45 Destroyers, cut to 8, with finally just the 6 being built. They have all been built, launched and commissioned, and very good they are too, providing air defence for the fleet. They are expected to serve until 2040, but very likely with refits, beyond that date. Then theres Astute, still being built, but not in Scotland. The Successor for Vanguard for Trident are also not planned for Scotland. We have no sub-building capacity. The two aircraft carriers are being built, part in England, and being finished off in Scotland. They should serve for 50 years, so until 2070 or longer. Just how many many more aircraft carriers will the UK build before then? None. Apart from 3 very tasty River class Offshore Patrol Vessels to be built on the Clyde what we have left is a planned 13 Type 26 Frigates, service life at least 25 years, unless the Royal Navy decides to build a few crusiers or battleships! So never mind all this tosh about what would Scotland build here, what on earth would the rUK build anywhere until 2040 apart from the Type 26s? And these are just as likely to be built on the Clyde with a YES, as it would cost a fortune the rUK will not have, to reschedule the building to a Portsmouth which is planned for maintenance, rather than in the modern BAE frigate factory planned for Scotstoun which will be able to build two side by side. Hammond relies on ignorance, he thinks were still living with the cow in the butt n ben, Well, Ive got news for him ...the BAE boss had no plans fairly recently to build the T26 anywhere other than at Scotstoun, and I would think would be asking for a lot more to build up Portsmouth which doesnt have the facilities or people in depth (according to him) to build them. Also in regards of building warships only in the country that orders them which is what is meant when the Britnats say the MoD has never built a warship outside the UK [which is a lie, they are building MoD RFA MARS Tankers in South Korea] >> The Defence and Security Public Contracts Regulations wont allow this for either country, or indeed any country in the EU. The effect of these Regulations is to implement the new European Union (EU) Defence and Security Procurement Directive, basically extending the single market regulations into defence and security contracts, subject to guarantees about the defence or security of that country. I am quite certain that Hammond, faced with this point would confidently assert that the fact that the UK has never built a warship outside the UK would be sufficient defence. But of course, the problem he has is that one of the warship yards at which this work has been done would, in the event of a Yes vote, be in a foreign country. Having built however many warships at Scotstoun, at whatever cost and with a well-established workforce and security procedures that function well (one might have thought) what would their justification be for moving the work out of Scotstoun, particularly as Peter has pointed out, the cost would be enormous and BAE would expect full compensation (at least). So. whether on a historical basis, or a current cost basis, moving the work out of Scotstoun simply look indefensible.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 10:53:19 +0000
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