Findlay: Tory Scottish government would embrace defence industry

A Scottish Tory government would “embrace” Scotland’s defence industry, the party’s leader has said.

Speaking at BAE Systems in Glasgow on Friday, Russell Findlay hit out at the “skills shortage” facing the sector, pledging to reinstate funding cuts to colleges in recent years.

His party would also do more to highlight the industry, he said.

“First of all, we’d talk about it, we’d embrace it, we’d champion it,” Mr Findlay said.

“We’d support the workers here – you rarely hear SNP politicians even acknowledging the existence of the world leading defence industry in Scotland.”

He added: “What we would also do is fix the broken apprenticeship model.

“There’s something very far wrong where, under the SNP, one of these defence companies has had to import hundreds of welders from overseas because of the skills shortage in Scotland.

“That’s a wholly devolved matter, that’s something in the Scottish Government’s gift, and they failed in that count, just as they failed in so many ways.”

Defence giant Babcock was forced to bring in 300 welders from the Philippines, reportedly because of the shortage of skills in Scotland.

Mr Findlay added: “We would get training back up and running, we’d support the college sector and we’d ensure that employers like this have the people, have the skilled workforce they need for today and, indeed, tomorrow.”