Recommendation 61

Sir Simon Lister of BAE told us that were the FSS vessels not to be built in Scotland it would create a gap in the continuity of orders for workers in the Scottish warship industry, but added that this gap could still be filled by other work: I see continuity as really important. Do they have the capacity to absorb that work? Yes. Would the absence of that FSS work prejudice that continuity and the sustainability of that workforce? Yes, but we go looking for other work to plug that gap.98 Professor Keith Hartley and Hans Pung of RAND Europe also took the view that the FSS was potentially important to the future workload. Responding to the suggestion that the FSS contract was a “litmus test” for the National Shipbuilding Strategy, Professor Hartley said this was something he would “certainly accept and acknowledge.”99 Mr Pung said he was “not sure I would characterise it as a litmus test” but that alternative options would be needed in the future workload in the absence of the FSS.100