DUNFERMLINE and West Fife MP Douglas Chapman is calling for calm amid fears that Rosyth’s aircraft carriers could be left to rust due to an ongoing jobs dispute.

Trade union Unite vowed to use “everything in its armoury” to fight a threat to the workforce in Clyde shipyards and now Rosyth is being dragged into the furore.

Earlier this week, GMB Scotland officer Gary Cook promised to do whatever it takes to make sure members’s demands were met, vowing that the two aircraft carriers currently under construction in Rosyth would be left to rust if there were any compulsory redundancies in Clyde.

However, it’s understood union officials at Rosyth dockyard are less than impressed with the threats being made to the carriers and claim not to have been contacted on the issue by their counterparts in Clyde.

Unite said the threat to jobs followed a “series of broken promises” by the UK government on the Type 26 frigate programme and a refusal by ministers to go ahead with a promised ‘frigate factory’ on the Clyde.

Instead of building the promised 13 frigates, the UK government has delayed the project and is now planning to build five fewer over a longer timeframe, after diverting £750 million to other defence projects.

SNP defence spokesman Brendan O’Hara said it would be an “utter betrayal” if the UK government was unable to keep the pledges it made to the Clyde workforce and Mr Chapman called for calm over claims the super-carriers could be held hostage over any potential job losses.

“I agree with my colleague and SNP defence spokesman Brendan O’Hara, that this would be a betrayal,” he said.

“People in Rosyth know that I am on the Defence Committee fighting for their jobs and for jobs on the Clyde too, because these yards cannot be seen as mutually-exclusive; the carriers project itself, on time and on budget, is testament to the good work that Scottish yards can do when they pull together.

“The UK government has paid lip-service to their commitment to build ships on the Clyde but will not give assurances that there will be no redundancies.”

Mr Chapman has pledged to fight to ensure the Rosyth will be the location for refit work scheduled to begin on the HMS Queen Elizabeth in 2020-21.