Ships deal will secure 2,000 jobs

Aircraft carriers are a vital part of the Royal Navy's fleet

Building the UK's biggest ever aircraft carriers will create or secure more than 2,000 jobs in England's shipbuilding industry.

Portsmouth is set to be the biggest beneficiary, with 1,200 posts at ship builders VT saved in the move.

Some 970 jobs will be created or sustained in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, and Newcastle upon Tyne.

The 65,000-tonne ships, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, will cost a total of £3.2bn.

This contract signals the confidence the government and the Ministry of Defence have in the Barrow yard and other yards involved in the programme John Hutton, Secretary of State for Business and Enterprise

The ships - 280m long and each capable of carrying up to 40 aircraft - are due in service in 2014 and 2016.

Each ship will be a similar size to the ocean liner the QE2, with a flight deck the size of three football pitches.

The announcement has secured the future of Portsmouth naval base following concerns over its future, said Labour MP for Portsmouth North Sarah McCarthy-Fry.

"A study showed 35,000 jobs were dependent on the naval base in the travel to work area; this gives these positions security," she said.

Contract work

"Plus, with the ships being based here, the base will be secure as the UK's premier naval port for many years."

Central blocks for the vessels will be built at the BAE Systems shipyard in Barrow, which is also conducting much of the design work.

England's shipbuilding history Shipbuilding's boom years came in the early 20th Century when Britain led the world Many of England's shipyards were in the North East, with others at Barrow and Merseyside Employment slumped in the mid 1920s but the industry prospered in WWII But from the early 1960s shipyards struggled to find work due to increasing competition

A spokesman for the company said 400 people would be employed on a contract basis for building work and a further 300 posts would be "consolidated" for the design work.

The A&P Yard, in Newcastle, will make 21 steel units for each of the carrier sections, ensuring jobs for 270 core and contract workers at the site.

Once completed, each section of the carrier hull will be transported by sea to Rosyth, in Scotland.

Business Secretary John Hutton - who is also MP for Barrow in Furness - said: "This contract signals the confidence the government and the Ministry of Defence have in the Barrow yard and other yards involved in the programme."

BBC defence correspondent Caroline Wyatt said the Navy saw the new carriers as its future flagships to replace Ark Royal and Illustrious, transforming Britain's ability to operate in hostile waters.

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Navy's new aircraft carriers

She said the project was going ahead despite serious misgivings among some in the military about the huge financial burden they would place on a defence budget already under severe pressure.

Keith Hazlewood, national secretary of the GMB union - and also chairman of the confederation of shipbuilding unions - said the industry was "buoyant".

"It's great news, after much speculation that the order may have been cancelled," he added.

Many other companies are set to benefit from the construction of the ships.

Defence support company Babcock International is one of the named partners in the "Aircraft Carrier Alliance".

Steel units for each of the bow sections will be built at its base in Appledore, Devon.

Extra contracts

Electronics firm Thales UK is another named company in the alliance and will employ 250 contract workers at sites in Bristol and Crawley.

Jobs are expected to be secured at BAE Systems Integrated System Technologies (Insyte) base at Frimley, Surrey.

Peter Mathews, president of the Midlands World Trade Forum, said the ship contracts were "great news" for areas with a manufacturing history, like the West Midlands.

"There are so many extras which will come along with these contracts - the hydraulics, the communication systems, the fitting the ships out, the catering, there is potential for the region to have a massive input."