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THE Navy’s flagship supercarriers could be held hostage to save Clyde shipyard jobs.

Unions said yesterday the ships being built at Rosyth would be left to rust if a single worker is axed.

They issued the warning as the row over the Type 26 frigates being built at the BAE yards on the Clyde grew.

In a broadside across David Cameron’s bows, the GMB union blasted the delays in the contract.

And they vowed unions in the yards on the east and west coasts would stand in solidarity to defend the workers on the Clyde.

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They said the two supercarriers, the biggest Navy ships ever built, would not be allowed to leave Rosyth if there are job losses at BAE.

The shipyard unions were told on Thursday by BAE bosses that work on the Type 26 order would not now begin until late next year.

(Image: Crown copyright)

The vessels will also be built at a slower pace in a move unions say could create 800 redundancies in the Glasgow yards, almost half the 2000-strong workforce.

In the Commons, defence procurement minister Philip Dunne admitted the design phase would continue until the middle of next year. The number of the boats on order has already been cut from 13 to eight.

The unions say the Government want to reduce the “drumbeat” of production, a move they say will lead to the end of complex warship building in Britain.

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And they have blasted MoD chiefs for taking £750million out of the BAE contract to “keep the Navy afloat”.

As Nicola Sturgeon met shop stewards from the Govan and Scotstoun yards on the Clyde, GMB Scotland officer Gary Cook said his members would do “whatever it takes” to defend shipyard jobs.

(Image: John Linton/BAE Systems/PA Wire)

He said: “The joint trade unions are as one. We will not accept one further compulsory redundancy on the Clyde. I want the Government to hear that loud and clear.

“We have got two aircraft carriers that have not been handed over yet at Rosyth. As far as we’re concerned, they will rust at Rosyth if there are any compulsory redundancies on the Clyde.”

The first of the £6billion carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth, is at Rosyth being fitted out before being sent to Portsmouth next year.

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The second, HMS Prince of Wales, is still being assembled.

Cook added: “We’ve got a lot of Clydesiders working in Rosyth. We’re a small family now, and like all small families we look after each other.”

The GMB organiser said of the MoD: “Because they got their sums wrong they’ve taken £750million out of the budget, basically to keep the Navy afloat.

(Image: John Linton/SWNS)

“They no longer want the drumbeat of the work, one Type 26 being produced a year.

“If the volume of work is not going through the sheds, there will be a surplus of labour. The worst case scenario is that we will lose 800 jobs.

“It would probably signal the death knell of complex warships being built on the Clyde.

“This is do or die for the Clyde. We need to go back to the original plan … bring the date forward to start cutting the first Type 26 to January or February.”

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Cook also hit out at BAE for not investing in the Scotstoun and Govan yards and for going back on promises made in 2013 when unions accepted job losses in return for assurances on the future.

He said: “They promised us investment, a state of the art frigate factory.

“They’ve demolished Scotstoun, rubble everywhere, and no frigate factory. We’ve got 150 apprentices, they’re only on a one-year promise before they’re on the scrapheap.

“There should have been 10 years of guaranteed work.

(Image: 2015 Getty Images)

“They’ve lied to us, betrayed us, and we’re going to hold them to account. It’s a real body blow.

“If we’re going to be producing one Type 26 every 12 months, we should be thinking about cutting steel for the first now.

“They now only want one every 18 months which will result in 50 per cent of the workforce being thrown on the industrial scrapheap.”

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There was no sign of Defence Secretary Michael Fallon in the Commons yesterday when urgent questions were raised.

Dunne stood in for him and, to the frustration of SNP MPs, would only repeat: “We have a commitment to build eight Type 26s on the Clyde and that will provide work for many years to come.”

He would give no assurances there would be no redundancies.

Shadow Defence Secretary Emily Thornberry said Fallon couldn’t “be seen for dust” as Dunne repeatedly said he could not answer her questions on the specifics of the project.

SNP defence spokesman Brendan O’Hara said: “The answers given in the Commons will do nothing to reassure the workforce at the Clyde yards.

“It would clearly be an utter betrayal of the workforce and the whole industry if the UK Government were unable to keep to the pledges they made to the Clyde workforce.

“Just three years ago, the Prime Minister assured workers at BAE that ‘Scottish defence jobs are more secure as part of the UK’.”