The Royal Fleet Auxiliary support ships should be built in the UK

The Government has put construction of the new RFA support ships out to International tender. Under EU article 346, warships are exempt from international tender, but the UK doesn't apply this to RFA ships. Other countries do apply this exemption and support their industrial base. So should the UK

The construction of warships & minesweepers for the Navy and support ships for the RFA should allow a thriving shipbuilding industry in the UK. But the Govt applies a narrow definition of what constitutes a warship, recently 3 RFA ships were built in S Korea, 3 more ships have been put out to international tender. V few other countries will allow their industrial base to be hollowed out like this. Would Spain, Italy, S Korea & Japan build their ships in the UK? The ships must be built in the UK

The Government is highly supportive of the UK shipbuilding industry. One shipyard alone has received a contract worth £3.6 billion that will provide work until the 2030s and a second has recently been awarded support contracts worth £619 million.

The UK’s National Shipbuilding Strategy, published in 2017, laid the foundations of a modern and efficient shipbuilding industry, capable of meeting the country’s future defence and security needs. We want an industry that has the confidence to invest for the long term in its people and its assets to raise productivity and innovation, improve its competitiveness in the domestic and overseas markets and in this way become more resilient to the peaks and troughs of Royal Navy business, bringing more sustained growth and prosperity to the regions in which those businesses are based.

Today some 111,000 people are working in the maritime and marine sectors in the UK, including in the shipyards, supplying the parts, or supporting the equipment that keep this great industry alive. The Government’s vision is of an even more modern, efficient, productive and competitive marine sector.

The industry has recently seen notable success with the selection of BAE System’s Type 26 Frigate design by Australia and Canada for their own future frigate requirements. A consortium of UK companies is also bidding to build the new Fleet Solid Support Ships.

For the purposes of procurement, the UK’s National Shipbuilding Strategy, divides naval ships into ‘warships’ and ‘other naval ships’. The UK has chosen to define warships, in this way on the basis of their complex design, weapons systems and sensors. The ships which meet this criteria are frigates, destroyers and aircraft carriers. The UK needs these type of ships to be designed, built and maintained in the UK so that, in times of war, we are not reliant on any other nation to carry out these activities on our behalf. In this way we protect our National Security.