JEREMY Corbyn's call to award £1 billion worth of contracts to UK shipbuilders ("Corbyn: Keep £1bn Navy shipbuilding in UK", The Herald, May 11) is the sort of common sense support we should be regularly hearing from our politicians. Govan was once at the heart of the global shipbuilding industry as the cutting-edge leader and innovator. Such contracts would secure thousands of jobs and expertise within Glasgow.
Unfortunately it may not be possible for a government of any party to make a guarantee. The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union means that all EU shipyards can tender for the work. The EU Defence Directive allows for an exemption if the work that may "undermine essential security interests" but the recent Tide-class ships failed this test and were built elsewhere. Leaving the EU will allow for all naval shipbuilding to return to the UK.
Tom Walker,
39 Fountain Place,
Loanhead, Midlothian.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel