Former MP for Hereford
None, Sir. The first orders for the programme will be placed in the near future.
I will go into that point, but I hope very much not.
I cannot say what work will go to Chatham Dockyard, but I can say that all shipyards and dockyards will be considered fairly so far as the orders to which the Question refers are concerned.
In the first nine months of 1955, 202 ships of about 957,000 gross tons were completed in British shipyards, compared with 172 ships of about 1,126,000 gross tons in the corresponding period of last year.
I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I will do everything I can and that the Admiralty will do all in their power to help over the steel question, but the present shipbuilding position is really pretty satisfactory.
Apart from warships and a few types of merchant ship of particular strategic value, there is no prohibition on the export of ships to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and other Eastern European countries.
I think that the position is pretty well understood by those in authority. Some ships concerned are tankers, which are useful for refuelling submarines; whaling factory ships, which are used as submarine depot ships and whalecatchers, which are convertible into anti-submarine vessels or minelayers.
These are not restrictions made by the British Government they are international. An international decision is taken by an international committee.
