[Tomvart]

I think the issue with UK shipbuilding currently, particularly that of Military ships - is do do with the p1ss poor procurement process they use, which essentially is almost solely based on the price.

Having taken part in a number of bids tendered by the MOD over a number of years , I can say that they are dreadful, costly and painful for the potential bidders, and almost every time - the cheapest bid wins - hands down.

Warships are governed by a similar procurement process which dictates that it must be a UK Shipyard that builds the ship - which currently means BAE Systems, both are poor options in my opinion, I mean - why on earth would the UK government encourage a monopoly - which only serves to drive the price up and the delivered build quality down?

Nationalisation followed by privatisation (with building type clauses on each yard) destroyed many of the private firms abilities to freely compete and ultimately led to the closure of dozens of good UK shipyards, this situation was made worse by decades of under-investment in manufacturing and prefabrication techniques.

I agree with Varley that the RFA's should be procured from UK yards, this way many of the now defunct famous shipbuilders may have still been in existence today, and BAE would not have the expensive monopoly it holds.

Its a crying shame that all of that wonderful expertise in ship design & manufacture have been lost, my old Grandfather and old man would be turning in their graves.

Its looking very bleak for UK industry!