The government’s National Shipbuilding Strategy has seriously been called into question by workers’ unions in the south western regions of the United Kingdom, who are insisting that the paper by Sir John Parker (known more commonly as the “Parker report”) needs to be taken into serious consideration in order to ensure that less money is wasted in the shipyard sector of the country. Members of the GMB as well as of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions (CSEU) have joined forces in order to put pressure on Members of Parliament in the South West of England to report back to parliament the issues that have been raised with their current ship strategy.

It is greatly hoped also that the fact that members of Appledore Shipbuilders are writing of the comparative prices which are being devoted in Ireland to those that the government has currently put in place indicate that hundreds of millions of pounds could actually be safeguarded if the Parker report was put into place instead of what the government already has in mind. As Matt Roberts of the CSEU explains, the cost of the patrol fleet being built in Ireland for the Irish Navy is currently at 50 million euros, compared to the staggering £257 million charges that have been witnessed in other parts of Britain.

It is evident that the trade union organizers and workers’ committees will do whatever they can to ensure that shipyards in the South West of England remain open for business, but with the staggering prices being imposed it is becoming more clear than ever that something drastic needs to be implemented by the government soon to stop the shipbuilding industry from collapsing in those various regions altogether. As the Parker report indicates, there is a solution that the government is set to consider in the springtime, but in the meantime it is evident whose side the GMB and the CSEU are on.