DEFENCE Secretary Philip Hammond must come clean about the future of the defence industry and how his plans will affect workers in the industry including at the warship building yards on the Clyde, Labour has warned.
Mr Hammond was expected to have made a Commons statement before Westminster's Easter break after reports he was considering an about-face on the equipment that will be used to launch planes on the aircraft carriers being built at Govan in Glasgow.
However, after a Ministry of Defence spokesman said yesterday no date had been set for Mr Hammond's statement, Shadow Defence Secretary Jim Murphy claimed "to give the country confidence in the Government's handling of the defence equipment programme and budget as a whole, ministers today need to answer serious questions".
Mr Murphy spoke out as two giant sections of HMS Queen Elizabeth, the largest and most powerful warships ever built for the Royal Navy, were joined at BAE Systems Govan shipyard.
He warned that "thousands of jobs in the four countries of the United Kingdom are tied to the success and progress of the carrier programme".
In December, the Commons Public Accounts Committee criticised the Ministry of Defence, saying the full costs of scaling back Britain's controversial aircraft carrier programme were not fully understood by the Government.
Mr Murphy said "many will ask whether a Government which cannot manage an aircraft carrier programme can be trusted with the economy as a whole".
The Queen Elizabeth is the first of two 65,000-tonne carriers being built for the Royal Navy and part of the work on the second, the Prince of Wales, is also being carried out at Govan.
BAE Systems project director Steven Carroll said it was "the biggest shipbuilding programme in the UK for a generation and will help sustain thousands of jobs across Scotland for at least the next six years". He said up to 14,000 people were working on the project in terms of the construction, design and manufacturing and supply of materials.
Yesterday's operation took around 90 minutes to move a 4087-tonne section of the hull of the aircraft carrier 100 metres using 132 remote-controlled transporters to join another section of the ship. Engineers will now spend the next week ensuring they are perfectly aligned before welding them together into an 80-metre long, 11,500-tonne unit.
The hull section, which will house two engine rooms, a medical area and accommodation, will now be fitted out before being transported to Rosyth in the autumn to join up with the other sections of the ship which have been constructed in Portsmouth.
Labour MP Ian Davidson, whose Glasgow South West constituency includes Govan, said: "The giant hull sections are awe-inspiring and testament to the skill and commitment to the incredible workforce on the Clyde.
"For generations, the Clyde yards have built the most incredible Navy ships and the carriers will be the largest and most advanced ever built. We have to make sure these are not the last ships built on the Clyde, and we have to keep winning orders.
"The Royal Navy order book sustains shipbuilding on the Clyde and anything that damages that damages Scotland."
Other work at Govan and BAE Systems' neighbouring yard at Scotstoun includes finishing work on the Type 45 Destroyers HMS Defender which recently completed her second and final trials before being handed over to the Navy in July, and the outfitting of HMS Duncan, the sixth and final ship in the class, before she goes to sea for the first time later this year.
Design work is also taking place at Scotstoun for the for the Navy's new frigates, the Type 26.
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