Last updated at 12:10, Thursday, 11 March 2010

A BAE graduate trainee with nerves of steel quizzed the shipyard’s boss at a prestigious defence conference – and said he felt his future was not very secure.

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Jay Edwards, 24, who works with the business strategy team at the yard, tackled BAE Submarine Solutions managing director, John Hudson at the Defence Industry NW 2010 conference in Manchester.

It was one of the more lively moments during Friday’s day-long conference – organised by Barrow shipyard campaigners.

The conference was designed to provide a platform for the defence industry and its supply chain firms in the north west to air their concerns about possible defence cuts.

A succession of speakers outlined why the government should not slash the defence industry.

The first speaker was Barrow’s Terry Waiting, chairman of the Keep Our Future Afloat Campaign.

Kofac was first formed for the defence of the shipyard and its order book.

But the group saw the benefits of widening the defence lobby to the whole north west region.

Last year the group staged the first of what it is hoped will continue to be an annual series of Defence Industry NW conferences, organised by Furness Enterprise.

The first was in Barrow, the second at Manchester on Friday, and another northwest location is likely to be chosen for the third next year. During a final question time session, BAE graduate Mr Edwards, said: “I am a graduate at the shipyard but I don’t feel as confident about my jobs prospects as I should be.”

Asking Mr Hudson for a response he said there were three reasons he felt uncertain.

One was that the initial batch order for Astute submarines was made by John Major’s government as long ago as March 1997 with, he claimed, no big order since.

Secondly, there was talk of shrinking the Trident successor submarine fleet being designed in Barrow now, from four to three boats.

Thirdly, he told Mr Edwards: “There is not as much diversity in the shipyard as there should be.”

There was just one customer, he said, and that was the Ministry of Defence

Mr Hudson said: “I think that the UK is a naval nation and I see a real commitment to the Astute programme.”

The average age of the existing submarine fleet was 24, he said.

If the UK wanted to stay ‘in the underwater battle space’ new Astute boats from Barrow were essential. Mr Hudson said: “I see a real appetite for that in all political areas.”

Mr Hudson said: “We are well under way with Boat 4. I expect we will be under way on Boat 5 very soon.

“We need to get the Astute programme on a really sound footing to given the government and the treasury the confidence that the UK can design and build nuclear submarines.”

On Trident subs, he said: “I quite understand the uncertainty round ‘will there be or won’t there be a Successor programme’

“Successor is a highly politicised business therefore we are going to see this things.

“These things are rightly being discussed by politicians.”

“My own judgement is when people analyse it they will conclude there needs to be a Successor project so my feeling is that it will go ahead.”

He told the conference his own personal view is that Successor will go ahead, whatever party wins the election but that he had no proof of that.

He admitted the Ministry of Defence timetable has slowed and was awaiting the election, but there was ‘still traction in the system’ and design work would continue to be funded.

On diversity, Mr Hudson said to Mr Edwards: “I think in the long term your point is very fair but right now it would be a distraction. Barrow is part of BAE Systems which is a very diversified group.”

Diversity might come at Barrow but for now it was a matter of getting on with the core Barrow activity of building nuclear submarines, he said.

At the conference, Mr Hudson revealed there are now 300 designers and engineers working on the designs for the next class of Trident submarines in Barrow.

He said: “It is a very important for us. It has enabled us to take these unique engineers into the next submarine programme.”

TERRY Waiting, chairman of Kofac: “Today is the first time that the region’s trades unions, industry and political leaders have come together in Manchester to debate the way forward for defence, one of the North West’s most successful industries.

“The sector supports 17,000 jobs across the region. Six thousand of these are employed in my own area, Cumbria.

“The region’s defence industry is a frontline service.

“It provides the nation’s deterrent, air defence capability, keeps the sea lanes open, and protects our forces in Afghanistan and elsewhere.”

John Woodcock, Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Barrow, who stood in for procurement minister Quentin Davies, who was called to a Berlin conference at the last minute, said: “We meet at what is, unquestionably, a challenging time for our industry. The constraint on government spending over the next 10 years will be acute.

“We (Labour) understand that a thriving UK defence industry and the jobs that it sustains is not an unaffordable luxury. It is essential to Britain’s capability to protect its people.”

Dave Crausby, MP for Bolton North East and chairman of the House of Commons Northwest Regional Select Committee said: “On the defence industry front, the North West has much to be proud of and at the same time much to fear.

“There is a defence spending funding gap that will need to be urgently dealt with, whichever government takes over. A report from the National Audit Office said it could be as much as £36bn over the next 10 years.”

Sarah Kemp, director of Business Relations at the Northwest Regional Development Agency, said, counting suppliers, there were 350 North West firms involved in defence.

The industry employed 53,000 people, with sales totalling £9.4bn a year.

Companies ranged from aerospace in Lancashire and ship repair on Merseyside, to submarine building in Barrow and the biggest military munitions store in the country at Longtown, near Carlisle.

Robin Fox, of the Northern Defence Industries, said: “Today there is a potential growing threat in that no longer do we have independent prime contractors like Vickers and Swan Hunter, with headquarters in the north. The HQs are in the south or abroad as industrial consolidation continues. This places the supply industry in the North of England in an even more competitive environment.”

Bernie Hamilton, national Unite union officer for aerospace and shipbuilding welcomed the agreements between the government and surface shipbuilders, which assured 15 years of work which will “encourage economic growth and social stability in local economies”.

Mr Hamilton said: “We are not asking for handouts, just recognition, that the manufacturing sectors needs to be supported and championed.”

Matt Bassford, of consultants Rand Europe said of a Rand study done for the government: “A lot of the skills required in the naval and aerospace sectors are unique to those sectors and, unless sustained by the government, it is difficult for the industry to sustain these activities.

“There is sufficient demand in the submarine programme to retain design/build skills through to 2027, but the shipbuilding industry is more bumpy.”

First published at 13:12, Tuesday, 09 March 2010
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk