The Royal Navy’s submarine base at Faslane – home to Britain’s nuclear deterrent – is to receive a £500million investment grant from the Government, in a move which George Osborne says will safeguard 6,700 jobs at the Scottish site and create thousands more.
The cash will be spent on repairing ship lifts, sea walls and jetties at the base, which will be home to the nuclear Astute and Successor submarines, their crews and engineers until at least 2067. From 2020, Faslane will be the navy’s ‘Submarine Centre of Specialisation’ – all of the UK’s underwater capability will be located in Scotland.
The base hosts 6,700 staff, which is expected to increase to about 8,200 over the next seven years. Mr Osborne’s move is designed to wrongfoot the SNP that has called for Trident to be scrapped but has also called for long-term economic investment in Scotland. The future of Faslane as home to Trident has been cast into doubt as part of the SNP’s campaign to remove the nuclear submarines.
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It could also cause problems for Labour if Jeremy Corbyn is leader having stood on a platform of not renewing the UK nuclear deterrent. The Chancellor said the investment aimed to ensure that HM Naval Base Clyde remained the “centre of UK submarines for the next generation”.
