Scotland's leading international expert on maritime transport has drawn a storm of protest from the UK defence industry by suggesting that the building in Scottish shipyards of two 65,000-tonne aircraft carriers for the Royal Navy at a combined cost of £4 billion would ultimately damage Scotland's long-term economic interests by displacing more economically productive civil shipbuilding opportunities.
In an article for today's Sunday Herald, Professor Alf Baird, who heads the maritime research group within Napier University's transport research institute, claims that building warships has had a "negative effect" on the UK's participation in a worldwide boom in merchant shipping.
Ian Watson, director of the Society of British Aerospace Companies Scotland, blasted Baird's argument as "spurious, inaccurate and ill-informed".
"The deal to build HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales brings billions of pounds worth of investment into the Scottish economy that would not otherwise, pure and simple. It would not be invested in ferries, would not be invested in container ships and would not be invested in cruise ships, Scottish built or otherwise," he said.
"The companies involved are delighted to have this enormously significant endorsement of their world-class expertise and capabilities. The employees and their families are delighted to see their jobs secured for many years to come, as is the supply chain of smaller companies across the UK."
Charles Thompson of BVT Surface Fleet, a consortium of BAE Systems and VT Group, the Ministry of Defence's partner for designing and building naval ships, said: "It is undoubtedly true that there is a massive worldwide market for large, simple cargo vessels used to transport ever-increasing quantities of goods from one place to another. Such ships have traditionally been built in low-wage economies, where for decades the UK has not been able to compete."
John Park MSP, a former trade union convener at Rosyth dockyard, said: "I would welcome any new shipbuilding contracts for UK yards and the opportunities put forward by Professor Baird for an expansion into merchant fleet are interesting.
"But the capacity for merchant fleet construction in the UK is fairly limited, and any new area of focus for the shipyards would be open to tender, unlike military ships which are allocated by the UK government to UK yards and can bypass international competition."
