Last updated at 13:42, Monday, 25 January 2010

THOUSANDS of shipyard workers were lobbied by Labour as they went to work today in the escalating electioneering row with the Tories over future submarine orders.

Labour has vowed to replace the existing Barrow-built Vanguard-class Trident submarines with a new generation of nuclear missile carriers.

The Tories have said the order could be delayed for five years by giving the existing subs a life extension to help cut the national debt and to align new missile submarine developments with those of the US, which supplies Trident.

Labour activists were at several main shipyard gates to hand out leaflets claiming Tory policy on successor Trident submarines could cost Barrow thousands of jobs.

They were led by John Woodcock, Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Barrow and Furness.

He said: “The Labour government has assured me they are going to ensure there is a sustainable progression [of work at the yard] up to the production of the Trident submarines.”

Mr Woodcock said in the leaflet: “This sinister Tory plan would create an unbridgeable gap in the yard’s order book and decimate Furness’s economy.”

While Mr Woodcock attacked the Tories over Trident, Barrow’s Conservative parliamentary candidate, John Gough, criticised Labour for delaying the Astute-class nuclear submarines, which are currently being built in Barrow.

He called for the town’s outgoing Labour MP and ex-defence secretary John Hutton to clarify by how much the Astute programme has been delayed.

Mr Gough said: “On December 15, Quentin Davies, minister for defence equipment and support, told the Defence Select Committee that they were aiming for a 22 to 26-month drumbeat.

“Yet on December 16, the National Audit Office (NAO) reported that boats two to four would be delayed and the order for boats five to seven deferred.

“They say that, on average, boats two to seven will be nine months late, which is, in total a 54-month or 4.5-year delay.”

“I am asking John Hutton, in his final weeks as Barrow’s MP, to do his constituents one last service and end the uncertainty that exists about the Astute programme and tell us straight: will the order for boats five to seven be deferred?”

Mr Gough said he had written to Julian Lewis, shadow defence minister with responsibility for the Royal Navy, to raise concerns over Astute.

First published at 13:00, Monday, 25 January 2010
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk