The first dockyard in Portsmouth was built on the orders of Richard I more than 800 years ago and the city has built ships for the Royal Navy almost ever since. But the city's hopes that its role in building the two new aircraft carriers, the Queen Elizabeth and the Prince of Wales, would revitalise shipbuilding at this most historic of sites are now dashed. On schedule but, at more than £6bn, shockingly over budget, they will instead be the last.

 

It's a decision that owes something to the politics of the United Kingdombut more to the needs of BAE, which is building the carriers. All future construction work will be done in Scotland, in the yards at Govan and Scotstoun. They will get the orders for type 26 frigates and three patrol boats to keep the yards ticking over until the new contracts are ready. As a result, a thousand of Portsmouth's 12,000 shipyard jobs will go – and since, according to the city's university, each 100 jobs in the dockyards supports another 66 beyond, the knock-on effects will be grim for the whole city. Almost as many jobs again will go on the Clyde. That's what happens when a whole political generation fails to develop an industrial strategy. It's another blow to the coalition promise to rebalance the economy.

 

The defence secretary, Philip Hammond, did not try to hide the relevance of next year's Scottish independence referendum when he briefed MPs. No United Kingdom, no new shipbuilding contracts, which won't be ready until after the vote. In theory, Portsmouth can still hope – except the odds are heavily against the Scots voting "yes". But there's a logic to concentrating building in the north that's been recognised for at least three years: the political advantage, if there is one, of being able to threaten nationalist sympathisers with job losses is more of a bonus ball than a cynical calculation. Nor has the news taken Portsmouth by surprise. Councillors and employers have been working since 2010 on an innovative £1bn regeneration scheme, combining investment in infrastructure with new links between schools and the city's big employers aimed at getting key-sector growth in areas such as aerospace and environmental technology.

 

It might not have been such a haul if, 30 years ago, politicians had considered a private-sector response to the consequences of shrinking the navy that Margaret Thatcher's first defence review precipitated. Some niche yacht-building did grow to take up a little of the slack, but this year Sunseeker, the last British-owned yard, based in Dorset, was bought out by the Chinese. And what was really needed was a focus on what has turned out to be the growth area in shipbuilding: the luxury cruise liner business. Instead they are built in Korea, Norway, Finland, France, Germany and Italy. Anywhere except the UK.

 (Source: theguardian.com)