Gordon Brown in plea for shipyard
GORDON Brown will use his first speech in the House of Commons tonight since quitting as Prime Minister to plead for jobs near his constituency.
Mr Brown is expected to intervene in a debate over the upkeep of two new aircraft carriers.
He will call for the contracts to go to Rosyth, which borders his Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath seat, and not a French dock.
Tory MP Bernard Jenkin said he should instead apologise for a deal which means it would cost more to scrap the second carrier than to build it. Both ships will cost at least £5.4billion and hundreds of millions to maintain.
Mr Jenkin said Mr Brown’s appearance in the debate “shows that his decision to order the carriers was about protecting his political interests rather than the national interest”.
Sir Jock Stirrup, outgoing chief of the defence staff, said yesterday the ships were necessary to rationalise dockyards but there had been some “unfortunate” procurement decisions under Labour.