British Navy ships could be built in Spain if chancellor blocks support package for historic Harland & Wolff shipbuilder in Belfast
~Larisa Brown~*, Defence Editor*
Wednesday May 15 2024, 9.50am BST, The Times
The historic shipyard that built the Titanic could face closure amid reports of an intense government “row” over its future.
Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, is expected to block a financial support package designed to keep the Harland & Wolff shipbuilding company in Belfast afloat, and government insiders have voiced serious fears that the 162-year-old firm could collapse as a result, marking the end of centuries of shipbuilding in the city.
Harland & Wolff is in possession of a £1.6 billion contract to construct Royal Navy ships. Its demise would mean that navy vessels could be built in the Spanish port of Cadiz. No warship in British naval history has been made by a foreign yard although large fleet support vessels can be constructed overseas.
Harland & Wolff ~has had financial problems~ for decades and has a market value of just £20 million. A £200 million taxpayer-backed support package to help shore up its finances was given the green light at Christmas.
The loan guarantee was conditional on the company passing state-aid checks. However, a defence source said ~Hunt~ had given the go-ahead to officials this week to reject the company’s application. It was disputed by a government spokesman and the company, both of which said discussions were continuing on the export development guarantee.
Hunt and ~Grant Shapps~, the defence secretary, have been in discussions over the future of the company in recent days, with one source saying there was a “row” between government departments.
The timing could not be worse for Shapps, the shipbuilding tsar, who on Tuesday heralded the ~“golden age” of shipbuilding~ as he announced 28 ships and submarines were in the pipeline.
Harland & Wolff is contracted to build three Royal Fleet Auxiliary support ships with Navantia, the Spanish shipbuilder, which has a yard in Cadiz. The ships are crucial for delivering munitions, explosives and stores to warships and aircraft carriers. If Harland & Wolff is unable to fulfil its commitments, it is believed that the vessels may be built in Spain.
Ben Wallace, the former defence secretary who handed the contract to Harland & Wolff, said the Treasury had been “hostile” to the national shipbuilding strategy, adding that it had “continued to hamper efforts to put the UK shipbuilding back on track”. The strategy had aimed to revitalise the UK’s world-renowned shipbuilding industry.
“If we are to retain and develop a historic UK yard with lots of potential then I ask the chancellor to ensure the export credit goes ahead,” Wallace said.
A Whitehall source insisted that the chancellor had “not blocked it yet” and the final decision was still to be made. They said they were confident that even if the loan guarantee was blocked the Belfast shipyard would build the ships, without identifying the solution.
“All 28 ships will be built in the UK,” the source said. They added that in the worst-case scenario, if Harland & Wolff closed, the ships would still be built in the UK, but gave no further details.
A government spokesman said: “We ~continue to engage with Harland & Wolff~ on the export development guarantee. Due to commercial sensitivities, it would not be appropriate to comment further until the outcome of the process is confirmed.”
A spokesman for Harland & Wolff said: “Our application for a UKEF [UK Export Finance] export development guarantee has not been rejected and the process is ongoing. We will not comment further on inaccurate speculation.”
by Sonaghan
8 comments
Where’s the source?
Apartment developers be like
wrote a book on how the nhs should be privatised with insurance , then the supposi-tories make him health secretary , had fun being foreign sec too and now shenanigans as a chancellor, been about has the de facto pm :
*jeremy cunt*
Unionists can we please understand. The Tories do not care about NI.
Forget finances or the ethics of it, surely anyone sane would agree that naval ships (for national security) should be built in the UK (British jobs bla bla bla)
“Subsequently, on 1 October 2019, it was announced that the shipyard had been bought for £6 million by the London-based energy firm, InfraStrata.
In August 2020, InfraStrata also bought the dormant Appledore shipyard for £7 million.[28] The deal will see the shipyard renamed H&W Appledore complementing the H&W Belfast shipyard by focusing on smaller ships of up to 119 metres in the shipbuilding and ship repair market.
In February 2021, InfraStrata acquired two BiFab yards, the £850,000 deal was struck for the Methil and Arnish yards, (but not the Burntisland facility). These Scottish facilities will trade under the Harland & Wolff brand.[citation needed] In September 2021, Infrastrata plc was renamed Harland & Wolff Group Holdings plc.”
So what on earth is happening to the company that owns Harland a Wolff then!!
I know folk that work there and they say the place is flat out and they’re looking more and more people to work in it!!!
>Hunt and Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, have been in discussions over the future of the company in recent days, with one source saying there was a “row” between government departments.
This is the real story. So the DoD is having a bunfight with the Treasury and have leaked this story to try and pressure them into coughing up the cash. Wonder why no 11 are being squirrily? £200mil is not that much compared to other sums of money that get spent. Perhaps they’re saving every penny for projects in Tory/swing constituencies.
> The historic shipyard that built the Titanic could face closure amid reports of an intense government “row” over its future
If there’s even a chance that this will save future generations from the scourge of cunts saying, “It was fine when it left here,” I’m all for it.