With the war raging in the Ukraine this good news for shipbuilding has taken a back seat and rightly so, but we feature it now.
While it is no apology any work for shipbuilders is welcome, we told the then “Tory” Government that the destruction of the industry was wrong, now with no lack of irony we hear about the re-industrialisation/levelling-up in the country. This crusty old shipbuilder is a bit long in the tooth to believe it all, but it has to be said that it has been a long time since shipbuilding in the U.K. has seen such a boost, even if the vast majority of this is military. The figures for the amount of money to create around 150 ships will be a lot higher than a 4 billion injection but it all helps.
The press has reported it as shown below.
“A £4 billion injection into UK regional shipbuilding will create tens of thousands of jobs and deliver more than 150 new naval and civil vessels over the next 30 years, the Government has said.
The investment, to be announced by the Prime Minister during a visit to a Merseyside dockyard on Thursday, will “galvanise” shipyards and suppliers across the country, Downing Street said.
The £4 billion fund for the new vessels was announced in the 2020 Spending review and the 2021 Autumn Budget.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) is set to publish its refreshed National Shipbuilding Strategy (NSBS).
A render of the Type 31 Frigate from BAE Systems
This will outline how the Government plans to support shipyards across the nation to upskill workers, create jobs, drive technology development, and ensure the industry “delivers on next-generation challenges”, Downing Street said.
Mr Johnson the prime minister said shipbuilding had been “in our blood for centuries”, and it should remain “at the heart of British industry of generations to come”. We told his predecessors both Tory and Labour the same words only to be ignored at the time.
“The National Shipbuilding Strategy will transform this important and crucial industry, creating jobs, driving technology development and upskilling the shipbuilders of tomorrow, ensuring we are levelling up across every dock, port and shipyard in the UK,” he said.
“This will ensure the UK is rightly seen as a shipbuilding power across the world.”
The above shows a render of the Type 26 frigate from an image from the Royal Navy. These ships will be built by Babcock at Rosyth.
A good time to be in shipbuilding, even with the present vacuum of skills it is also a good time for anyone male or female to be looking at careers in shipbuilding, should you wish some guidance on how to get into this amazing industry then just get in touch and I shall point you in the right direction.
It is also very ironic that our illustrious prime minister was pictured with the RFA Fleet replenishment vessel behind him, a ship that was built in South Korea, the reason being that we have no real commercial type shipbuilding capability left, after it had been destroyed by successive greedy governments looking for short term gains.
Which brings me nicely to the new Ferries required for the Scottish Islands, a lifeblood for the populations of the Islands, they need new ships to service the islands, so where are they going to be built-you guessed it, not in Scotland, not even in the U.K. they will be built in Turkey.
With a war going on in Ukraine would it not be a good idea to get some of our shipyards back up to speed, ready and capable to build large commercial type ships once more, it will not be accomplished overnight but they really should start it very soon, as the war that Russia has begun may well spread and spread very quickly in Europe.
We can only hope that this does not end up as just another Government Quango same as British Shipbuilders all them years ago, they are also putting money together to create some committee or other to identify the lack of skills in the industry, along with what to do about this vacuum that has been created due to more than 40 years of no apprentices. Can I just suggest we save a whole load of British tax payers money and they just speak to some of us old shipbuilders.
Until then why not check out my new Amazon Shops for the building of model ships, you will find many of them at this link to the models please have a wander over and give it a look, anything made goes to help keep this website going, thank you very much.