Union warns of threat to Harland & Wolff jobs if Treasury vetoes £200m support

A union representing workers at the historic Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast has written to the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, warning that doubts over financial support for the company are putting jobs in jeopardy.

The GMB said workers were concerned by claims that a £200m export guarantee could be blocked by the Treasury, despite having the backing of the ministries for defence, business and trade, and Northern Ireland.

The news follows reports that the chancellor is considering blocking the controversial £200m financial support package for the company, which also owns facilities in Devon and Scotland as well as the Belfast shipyard, which is famous for being the place where the doomed liner Titanic was built.

Harland & Wolff is part of a consortium with Spain’s state-owned Navantia that was awarded a £1.6bn contract to build “fleet solid support ships” – auxiliary vessels designed to transport ammunition and other provisions to Royal Navy warships.

Kevan Jones, Labour MP for North Durham, said he was concerned that the Royal Navy’s fleet solid support ships would have to be built entirely at Navantia’s Cádiz yard if Harland & Wolff were to fail.

Gavin Robinson, the interim leader of the Democratic Unionist party and the MP for the Belfast East constituency, which contains the shipyard, said on Wednesday that reports that the company could collapse were “wide of the mark” and that there was “strong support for the yard in London”.